ELECTRONIC DEVICE AND METHOD FOR CONTROLLING THE SAME

• US 20160336024A1
• Filed: 04/15/2016
• Published: 11/17/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 05/11/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Inventors: LEE, Jung-sup, JEON, Hee-sik, CHOI, Hyung-tak, HWANG, In-chul, KIM, Deok-ho
• Granted Patent: US 9,953,648 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/167 Audio in a user interface, e.g. using voice commands for navigating, audio feedback
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/22 Procedures used during a speech recognition process, e.g. man-machine dialogue
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 2015/228 of application context

Abstract

An electronic device and a method for controlling the same are provided. The electronic device includes a storage configured to store domain information that is categorized for dialogue subjects, a speaker configured to output a system response based on a user utterance sound, and a processor configured to detect a domain, among the domain information, based on the user utterance sound, determine one among the detected domain and a previous domain as a domain to be used to process the user utterance sound, based on a confidence between the user utterance sound and the detected domain, and process the user utterance sound to generate the system response, based on the determined domain.

Claims

1. An electronic device comprising:

a storage configured to store domain information that is categorized for dialogue subjects;

a speaker configured to output a system response based on a user utterance sound; and

a processor configured to;

detect a domain, among the domain information, based on the user utterance sound,

determine one among the detected domain and a previous domain as a domain to be used to process the user utterance sound, based on a confidence between the user utterance sound and the detected domain, and

process the user utterance sound to generate the system response, based on the determined domain.

2. The electronic device of claim 1, wherein the storage is further configured to:

categorize the dialogue subjects corresponding to respective domains for contexts, and

store the categorized dialogue subjects, and

the processor is further configured to;

select a context, from the contexts, based on the user utterance sound, in response to the processor determining the previous domain as the determined domain,

determine one among the selected context and a previous context as a context to be used to process the user utterance sound, based on a confidence between the user utterance sound and the selected context, and

process the user utterance sound to generate the system response, based on the determined context.

3. The electronic device of claim 2, wherein the processor is further configured to:

store information of the previous context in the storage in response to the processor determining the selected context as the determined context, and

process a new utterance sound based on the stored information of the previous context in response to the processor processing the user utterance sound based on the selected context.

4. The electronic device of claim 1, wherein the processor is further configured to:

store information of the previous domain in the storage in response to the processor determining the detected domain as the determined domain, and

process a new utterance sound based on the stored information of the previous domain in response to the processor processing the user utterance sound based on the determined domain.

5. The electronic device of claim 1, wherein the processor is further configured to determine the confidence between the user utterance sound and the detected domain based on whether an utterance element of the user utterance sound coincides with an utterance element of the detected domain.

6. The electronic device of claim 1, further comprising a communicator configured to communicate with an external device,

wherein the processor is further configured to, in response to the processor processing the user utterance sound to generate the system response based on a context using a control of a function of the external device in the determined domain, generate a system response for controlling the function of the external device based on information of the function of the external device.

7. The electronic device of claim 6, wherein the storage is further configured to store the information of the function of the external device,

the communicator is further configured to receive new information of the function of the external device that is added in a network, and

the processor is further configured to update the stored information based on the received new information.

8. The electronic device of claim 1, wherein the processor is further configured to determine one among the detected domain and the previous domain as the domain to be used to process the user utterance sound, based on utterance history information, and

the utterance history information comprises at least one among a previously received user utterance sound, information of a domain that was used to process the previously received user utterance sound, and a system response that was generated based on the previously received user utterance sound.

9. The electronic device of claim 1, wherein the domain information comprises at least one among control information for performing tasks corresponding to the dialogue subjects and dialogue patterns for the dialogue subjects.

10. The electronic device of claim 1, further comprising a microphone configured to receive the user utterance sound.

11. A method for controlling an electronic device including a storage storing domain information that is categorized for dialogue subjects, the method comprising:

detecting a domain, among the domain information, based on a user utterance sound;

determining one among the detected domain and a previous domain as a domain to be used to process the user utterance sound, based on a confidence between the user utterance sound and the detected domain; and

processing the user utterance sound to generate a system response, based on the determined domain.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

categorizing the dialogue subjects corresponding to respective domains for contexts;

selecting a context, from the contexts, based on the user utterance sound, in response to the determining the previous domain as the determined domain;

determining one among the selected context and a previous context as a context to be used to process the user utterance sound, based on a confidence between the user utterance sound and the selected context; and

processing the user utterance sound to generate the system response, based on the determined context.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

storing information of the previous context in the storage in response to the determining the selected context as the determined context; and

processing a new utterance sound based on the stored information of the previous context in response to the processing the user utterance sound.

14. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

storing information of the previous domain in the storage in response to the determining the detected domain as the determined domain; and

processing a new utterance sound based on the stored information of the previous domain in response to the processing the user utterance sound based on the determined domain.

15. The method of claim 11, further comprising determining the confidence between the user utterance sound and the detected domain based on whether an utterance element of the user utterance sound coincides with an utterance element of the detected domain.

16. The method of claim 11, further comprising, in response to the processing the user utterance sound to generate the system response based on a context using a control of a function of the external device in the determined domain, generating a system response for controlling the function of the external device based on information of the function of the external device.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

receiving new information of the function of the external device that is added in a network; and

updating the information of the function of the external device based on the received new information.

18. The method of claim 11, wherein the determining comprises determining one among the detected domain and the previous domain as the domain to be used to process the user utterance sound, based on utterance history information,

wherein the utterance history information includes at least one among a previously received user utterance sound, information of a domain that was used to process the previously received user utterance sound, and a system response that was generated based on the previously received user utterance sound.

19. The method of claim 11, wherein the domain information comprises at least one among control information for performing tasks corresponding to the dialogue subjects and dialogue patterns for the dialogue subjects.

20. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing a program to cause a computer to perform the method of claim 11.