Voice processing system
First Claim
1. A voice processing system having multiple telephony channels for making and receiving telephony calls including:
- means for communicating with a server including a voice recognition system for processing said telephony calls, said server being remote from said voice processing system;
means for playing a prompt to a caller over a telephone channel;
a voice activity detector for detecting caller input on said telephone channel;
means responsive to said detection of voice activity for initiating transmission of the caller input to said remote voice recognition system;
means for performing echo cancellation for said telephone call; and
a line interface unit which incorporates both said voice activity detector and said echo cancellation means, whereby the caller input is processed by said echo cancellation means prior to being processed by said voice activity detector and prior to the initiation of the caller input to said remote voice recognition system.
2 Assignments
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Accused Products
Abstract
A voice processing system comprising a digital trunk processor 135 and a system unit 145 incorporates a local voice recognition resource 185 provided on a digital signal processing board 180, and can access a remote voice recognition resource 320 in a server 300 via a local area network 250. The system provides a barge-in facility for the recognition resource on the remote server, whereby a prompt is played out to the user, and the incoming telephony signal is fed into a voice activity detector on the digital trunk processor. Responsive to a detection of incoming voice activity, the outgoing prompt is terminated, and the incoming data is transferred over the local area network to the remote server for recognition.
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Citations
12 Claims
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1. A voice processing system having multiple telephony channels for making and receiving telephony calls including:
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means for communicating with a server including a voice recognition system for processing said telephony calls, said server being remote from said voice processing system;
means for playing a prompt to a caller over a telephone channel;
a voice activity detector for detecting caller input on said telephone channel;
means responsive to said detection of voice activity for initiating transmission of the caller input to said remote voice recognition system;
means for performing echo cancellation for said telephone call; and
a line interface unit which incorporates both said voice activity detector and said echo cancellation means, whereby the caller input is processed by said echo cancellation means prior to being processed by said voice activity detector and prior to the initiation of the caller input to said remote voice recognition system. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
means for receiving said prompt being played out;
means for processing said prompt to generate an estimated echo signal;
and means for subtracting said estimated echo signal from the caller input on said telephone channel.
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6. The voice processing system of claim 1, further comprising means for buffering the caller input, wherein responsive to a detection of voice activity, the buffer contents are transmitted to said voice recognition resource.
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7. The voice processing system of claim 1, wherein said means for communicating with said remote server comprises means for transmitting and receiving data over a local area network.
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8. A method of providing barge-in support on N telephony channels in a voice processing system including a line interface unit for connecting to N or more channels, using a voice recognition system capable of performing voice recognition on up to an integer M channels simultaneously, where N>
- M and M>
1, the line interface unit also including a voice buffer and voice activity detection means, the method comprising for each of said N telephony channels;transmitting an outgoing telephony signal through the line interface unit;
buffering the incoming telephony signal in the voice buffer;
detecting voice activity in the incoming telephony signal;
responsive to such a detection, initiating the forwarding of the incoming telephony signal plus buffered portion to the voice recognition system; and
performing echo cancellation in said line interface unit, said echo cancellation being initialised at the start of a telephone call. - View Dependent Claims (9, 10, 11, 12)
- M and M>
Specification