Portable voice system for the verbally handicapped

• US 4,215,240 A
• Filed: 11/11/1977
• Issued: 07/29/1980
• Est. Priority Date: 11/11/1977
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Federal Screw Works
• Original Assignee: Federal Screw Works
• Inventors: Ostrowski, Carl L.
• Primary Examiner(s): Morrison, Malcolm A.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Kemeny, E. S.
• Application Number:
  US05/850,669
• Time in Patent Office: 991 Days
• Field of Search: 179/1 SM
• US Class Current: 704/271
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 21/00 Teaching, or communicating with, the blind, deaf or mute audible presentation of material to be studied G09B5/04; devices or methods for replacing direct visual or auditory perception by another kind of perception A61F9/08, A61F11/04; audible indication of meter readings or of colour G01D7/12; watches for blind persons G04B25/02; speech analysis, speech recognition G10L; sound-recording or reproducing, per se G11B
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/00 Speech synthesis; Text to speech systems

Abstract

A completely self-contained, battery operated, portable voice system for the verbally handicapped which is sufficiently compact to be hand held. The system contains a preestablished vocabulary of words, phonemes, and phrases which are accessible by the non-verbal via a keyboard. The desired message is then phonetically spoken by a speech synthesizer contained in the unit upon the depression of a TALK key. For verbally handicapped persons with minimal motor capabilities, the present invention is adapted to be operable in a scrolling scanning or "scrolling" mode wherein the numerical display is automatically rotated in sequence and the selections entered by activating a sensor switch with a single body function to stop the display at the desired number.

Claims

1. In a portable artificial voice system for the verbally handicapped, including first memory means having prestored therein digital data identifying phonemes phonetically defining a vocabulary of words, input means for randomly selecting words from said vocabulary, second memory means for temporarily storing said word selections in the order entered, computer means for reading the selections stored in said second memory means and retrieving from said first memory means the digital data identifying the phonemes phonetically defining said word selections, and synthesizer means responsive to the digital data retrieved by said computer means for synthetically speaking the words identified by said selections by integrating the phonemes identified by said data into intelligible sounding human speech;

the method of generating synthesized speech including the steps of;

entering via said input means a plurality of encoded word selections into said second memory means, and activating said computer means to repetitively perform the following sequence of steps until the entire message entered via said input means has been synthetically spoken;

(1) reading the first (next) encoded word selection stored in said second memory means, (2) accessing the appropriate memory address location(s) in said first memory means by first accessing the intermediary memory address location in said first memory means identified by said encoded word selection, reading the address data contained in said intermediary address location, and then accessing the memory address location(s) identified by said address data, (3) reading the digital data stored in said memory address location(s), and (4) providing said digital data to said synthesizer means.

2. The method of generating synthesized speech defined in claim 1 wherein the step of entering a plurality of encoded word selections into said second memory means comprises the repetitive steps of entering an encoded word selection via said input means and storing said encoded word selection into said second memory means.

3. The method of generating speech defined in claim 1 wherein said input means includes a numeric keyboard and said plurality of encoded word selections are made by entering number codes on said numeric keyboard.

4. The method of generating speech defined in claim 1 wherein said input means includes a keyboard area comprised of a plurality of touch-sensitive switches, and said plurality of encoded word selections are made by actuating individual ones of said switches.

5. The method of generating speech defined in claim 1 wherein said input means includes a single switch and a numeric display comprised of a multiplicity of digits which are adapted to scroll in sequence, and said plurality of encoded word selections are made by activating said switch once for each digit in said display which is effective to stop each scrolling digit at the point of activation.

12. The method of generating synthesized speech defined in claim 1 wherein said computer means provides digital data to said synthesizer means in accordance with the rate at which said synthesizer means generates and integrates said phonemes such that the rate of speech production is controlled by said synthesizer means.

6. A portable artificial voice system for the verbally handicapped comprising:

a phoneme based speech synthesizer that is responsive to successive digital data provided to its input identifying a desired sequence of phonemes for synthetically generating and integrating the phonemes identified by said input data into intelligible sounding speech;

a digital vocabulary memory having prestored therein digital data representing a plurality of phonemes which are arranged in groups of one or more sequentially stored phonemes which phonetically define a preselected vocabulary of words;

input means for entering random encoded word selections from said prestored vocabulary of words;

a temporary memory for storing a plurality of said encoded word selections in the order entered by said input means; and

a microprocessor programmed to sequentially read the encodsed word selections stored in said temporary memory and access the appropriate address locations in said vocabulary memory by first accessing the intermediary memory address location in said vocabulary memory identified by said encoded word selection, reading the address data contained in said intermediary address location, and then accessing the memory address location(s) identified by said address data to retrieve therefrom the digital data representing the groups of phonemes corresponding to the encoded word selections read from said temporary memory and provide said digital data in the appropriate sequence to said speech synthesizer.

7. The portable artificial voice system of claim 6 wherein said microprocessor is programmed to sequentially read the word selections stored in said temporary memory and access said vocabulary memory in response to a TALK command entered and received from said input means.

8. The portable artificial voice system of claim 6 wherein said microprocessor is programmed to provide said digital data to said synthesizer in accordance with the rate at which said synthesizer generates and integrates said phonemes such that the rate at which speech is produced by said synthesizer is independent of the rate at which said word selections are made via said input means.

9. The voice system of claim 6 further including switching means connected between said microprocessor and said digital vocabulary memory for disabling said digital vocabulary memory whenever said microprocessor is not retrieving data from said digital vocabulary memory.

10. The voice system of claim 9 wherein said system is operable by a portable battery source.

11. The voice system of claim 6 wherein the vocabulary of words prestored in said digital vocabulary memory includes isolated words and individual phonemes.

13. In a portable artificial voice system for the verbally handicapped including a memory having stored therein parametric data defining a vocabulary of words, input means for entering encoded word selections a microprocessor programmed to access the appropriate locations in said memory corresponding to said word selections and retrieve therefrom the parametric data stored therein, and a synthesizer responsive to said parametric data for synthetically speaking the message comprised of said word selections;

the improvement wherein said input means includes a single switch and a numeric display comprised of a multiplicity of digits, said microprocessor being further programmed to scroll the digits in said display and sequentially stop each digit upon the successive activation of said switch once for each digit in said display, to thereby enter an encoded word selection.

14. In a portable artificial voice system for the verbally handicapped, including vocabulary memory means having prestored therein digital data identifying phonemes phonetically defining a vocabulary of words, input means for randomly selecting words from said vocabulary including a single switch and a numeric display comprised of a multiplicity of digits, computer means responsive to said input means for retrieving from said vocabulary memory means the digital data identifying the phonemes phonetically defining said encoded word selections, and synthesizer means responsive to the digital data retrieved by said computer means for synthetically speaking the words identified by said selections by integrating the phonemes identified by said data into intelligible sounding human speech;

the method of generating synthesized speech including the steps of entering a plurality of word selections via said input means by scrolling the digits in said numeric display and sequentially stopping each digit upon the successive activation of said switch once for each digit in said display to thereby enter an encoded word selection, and thereafter activating said synthesizer means to synthetically speak the message consisting of said encoded word selections.