Voice recognition dialing system

• US 5,483,579 A
• Filed: 02/25/1993
• Issued: 01/09/1996
• Est. Priority Date: 02/25/1993
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Digital Acoustics Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Digital Acoustics Incorporated
• Inventors: Stogel, Scott S.
• Primary Examiner(s): BROWN, THOMAS
• Application Number:
  US08/023,791
• Time in Patent Office: 1,048 Days
• Field of Search: 379/351, 379/361, 379/67, 379/88, 379/89, 379/216, 379/355, 379/92, 381/46
• US Class Current: 379/88.03
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/271 controlled by voice recognition

Abstract

A telephone line may be provided with an automated voice recognition dialer system. A voice recognition telephone dialing system can be constructed with a dial tone elimination circuit connected to the telephone line. The utilization of a dial tone elimination circuit will eliminate the "noise" of a dial tone from consideration by a speech processing circuit which may be set up to analyze voice commands and generate appropriate responses such as dial tone generation or synthesized speech responses. In this manner, a single voice dialer may be utilized regardless of the number of telephones on a line.

Claims

1. A method for effecting telephone dial signaling, comprising the steps of:

verifying that a telephone line is in a dial-ready state;

inputting a voice instruction over a dial tone signal onto a telephone line;

rejecting the influence of a dial tone signal from reaching a voice recognizer while passing at least a portion of said voice instruction to said voice recognizer;

recognizing said portion of said voice instruction; and

generating a prestored dialing sequence corresponding to said voice instruction upon recognition.

2. A method according to claim 1, wherein said step of verifying further comprises the step of determining the hook status of said telephone line.

3. A method according to claim 1, wherein said step of rejecting is performed by filtering at least one signal frequency corresponding to a dial tone signal frequency.

4. A voice recognition telephone dialing system that does not require manual activation, comprising:

a dial tone removal circuit, coupled to a telephone line and active at least when the telephone line is in a dial ready state, to remove signal components in a predetermined frequency range;

a voice recognition unit with an input connected to an output of said dial tone removal circuit; and

a dialing signal generator responsive to said voice recognition unit and coupled to said telephone line.

5. A voice recognition telephone dialing system according to claim 4, wherein said dialing signal generator is a tone generator.

6. A voice recognition telephone dialing system according to claim 4, wherein said dialing signal generator is a pulse generator.

7. A voice recognition telephone dialing system according to claim 4, wherein said dial tone removal circuit is a filter.

8. A voice recognition telephone dialing system according to claim 4, wherein said dial tone removal circuit is a blocking circuit.

9. A voice recognition telephone dialing system according to claim 7, wherein said filter is a band reject filter.

10. A voice recognition telephone dialing system according to claim 7, wherein said filter is a notch filter.

11. A voice recognition telephone dialing system according to claim 7, wherein said filter is a digital signal processing filter.

12. A voice recognition telephone dialing system according to claim 7, wherein said filter is a digital signal processing mask.

13. A voice recognition telephone dialing system according to claim 7, wherein said filter comprises a plurality of filters.

14. A voice recognition telephone dialing system according to claim 4, wherein said dial tone removal circuit is a phase cancellation circuit.

17. A voice recognition telephone dialing system according to claim 4 wherein said dial tone removal circuit is implemented by a digital signal processing routine integrated with said voice recognition unit.

15. A voice recognition telephone dialing system, comprising:

means for recognizing a voice instruction and generating a predetermined dialing sequence corresponding to a recognized instruction; and

means, connected to an input of said means for recognizing, for blocking signals in a predetermined frequency range including at least a dial tone signal, and passing other signals outside said predetermined frequency range to said means for recognizing.

16. A voice recognition telephone dialing system according to claim 15, further comprising:

means, connected to a telephone line, for detecting status of said telephone line;

means for generating a telephone dialing signal in response to said dialing sequence; and

a means for controlling connected to said means for recognizing a voice instruction and generating a predetermined dialing sequence corresponding to a recognized instruction, said means for detecting and said means for generating.

18. A method for dialing a telephone, comprising the steps of:

verifying that a telephone line is in a dial-ready state;

adding a voice instruction signal to a dial tone signal on a telephone line wherein the sum of said voice instruction signal and said dial tone signal is a combined signal;

subtracting at least the dial tone signal from the combined signal and passing the remainder of the voice instruction signal to a voice recognizer;

recognizing the remainder of the voice instruction signal; and

generating a prestored dialing sequence corresponding to said voice instruction upon recognition.