Methods And Apparatus For Module Arbitration

• US 20170308389A1
• Filed: 09/30/2014
• Published: 10/26/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 09/30/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Nuance Communications, Inc. (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Ducatelle, Frederick, Grober, Marcus, Martens, Gaetan
• Granted Patent: US 10,210,003 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/167 Audio in a user interface, e.g. using voice commands for navigating, audio feedback
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/451 Execution arrangements for user interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/22 Procedures used during a speech recognition process, e.g. man-machine dialogue
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/32 Multiple recognisers used in sequence or in parallel; Score combination systems therefor, e.g. voting systems
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 2015/223 Execution procedure of a spoken command
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 2015/228 of application context

Abstract

Methods and apparatus to process a user input on independent applications that provide classifier outputs to an arbitration module, which selects one of the application to respond to the user input. The classifier outputs include a probability that the user input is in domain for the application functionality.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

receiving, in response to a user input, a first input from a first classifier of a first application, the first input including a probability of at least a portion of the user input being in domain for the first application, wherein in domain for the first application refers to functionality provided by the first application;

receiving, in response to the user input, a second input from a second classifier of a second application, the second input including a probability of at least a portion of the user input being in domain for the second application; and

performing arbitration on the user input using the first and second inputs to prioritize a first one of the first and second applications for responding to the user input.

2. The method according to claim 1, further including performing automated speech recognition (ASR) on the user input by an ASR module in the first application specific to the first application and generating a first feature list for the user input.

3. The method according to claim 2, further including processing the first feature list by the first classifier in the first application.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein the arbitration is performed by an arbitration module on a head unit of a vehicle.

5. The method according to claim 1, wherein the first application is located on the vehicle and the second application is located on a mobile phone wirelessly connected to the head unit.

6. The method according to claim 1, wherein the first classifier and the second classifier were trained using a reference dataset.

7. The method according to claim 1, wherein the first classifier includes an in domain/out of domain classifier trained using input data relevant to the first application for the in domain data and input data that is not relevant to the first application for out of domain data.

8. The method according to claim 1, wherein the first and second applications were independently developed.

9. The method according to claim 1, wherein the first classifier receives a feature set as input derived from the user input.

10. An article, comprising:

a non-transitory computer readable storage medium having stored instructions that enable a machine to;

receive, in response to a user input, a first input from a first classifier of a first application, the first input including a probability of at least a portion of the user input being in domain for the first application, wherein in domain for the first application refers to functionality provided by the first application;

receive, in response to the user input, a second input from a second classifier of a second application, the second input including a probability of at least a portion of the user input being in domain for the second application; and

perform arbitration on the user input using the first and second inputs to prioritize a first one of the first and second applications for responding to the user input.

11. The article according to claim 10, wherein the arbitration is performed by an arbitration module on a head unit of a vehicle.

12. The article according to claim 10, wherein the first application is located on the vehicle and the second application is located on a mobile phone wirelessly connected to the head unit.

13. The article according to claim 10, wherein the first classifier and the second classifier were trained using a reference dataset.

14. The article according to claim 10, wherein the first classifier includes an in domain/out of domain classifier trained using input data relevant to the first application for the in domain data and input data that is not relevant to the first application for out of domain data.

15. The article according to claim 10, wherein the first and second applications were independently developed.

16. The article according to claim 10, wherein the first classifier receives a feature set as input derived from the user input.

17. A system, comprising:

an interface to communicate with first and second applications;

an arbitration means coupled to the interface, the arbitration means to arbitrate on a user input from a user based on a first input from a first application in response to the user input and a second input from a second application in response to the user input, wherein the first input is received from a first classifier of the first application, the first input including a probability of at least a portion of the user input being in domain for the first application, wherein in domain for the first application corresponds to functionality provided by the first application, and wherein the second input is received from a second classifier of the second application, the second input including a probability of at least a portion of the user input being in domain for the second application, the arbitration means to prioritize a first one of the first and second applications for responding to the user input.

18. The system according to claim 17, wherein the first application is located on a vehicle head unit and the second application is located on a device wirelessly connected to the head unit.

19. The system according to claim 17, wherein the first classifier includes an in domain/out of domain classifier trained using input data relevant to the first application for the in domain data and input data that is not relevant to the first application for out of domain data.

20. The system according to claim 17, wherein the first classifier receives a feature set from an automated speech recognition module as input derived from the user input.