Voice controller and voice-controller system having a voice-controller apparatus

• US 7,006,974 B2
• Filed: 01/22/2001
• Issued: 02/28/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 01/20/2000
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Micronas Gmbh (TDK Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Micronas Gmbh (TDK Corporation)
• Inventors: Burchard, Bernd, Armbrecht, Lothar
• Primary Examiner(s): ABEBE, DANIEL DEMELASH
• Application Number:
  US09/767,800
• Publication Number:
  US 20010039494A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,863 Days
• Field of Search: 704/270, 704/275, 704/246, 704/233, 348/14.05, 348/734
• US Class Current: 704/275
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/20 Speech recognition techniques specially adapted for robustness in adverse environments, e.g. in noise, of stress induced speech G10L21/02 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/26 Speech to text systems G10L15/08 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 21/0208 Noise filtering

Abstract

A voice controller controls a voice-controlled apparatus, such as a television set, and includes a receiver for receiving sound information from a corresponding transmitter, which is associated with at least one sound source, for example an amplifier or the television set itself. A processor coupled to a microphone and the receiver corrects the sound signal registered by the microphone in accordance with the sound information received by the receiver in order to eliminate a component of the sound signal corresponding to the sound information. The sound signal corrected in this way is subjected to voice recognition.

Claims

1. A voice controller for a voice-controlled apparatus having a voice-controlled receiver, comprising:

a sound source with a transmitter for transmitting sound information being obtained from audio signals of the sound source being mixed together encoded and/or modulated and converted into the sound information;

a sound detector detecting a sound signal containing a voice command, said sound detector having a voice recognizer recognizing the voice command, and said sound detector converting the voice command into a corresponding control signal for the voice-controlled apparatus;

a receiver receiving sound information from said transmitter associated with said sound source;

a sound signal processor coupled to said sound detector and said receiver, said sound signal processor correcting the sound signal by eliminating the sound information from the sound signal to produce a corrected sound signal, and supplying the corrected sound signal to said voice recognizer for evaluation;

said sound detector, said receiver, said sound signal processor, and said voice recognizer being disposed in a mobile part provided separately from the voice-controlled apparatus;

said mobile part having a transmitter transmitting the corresponding control signal to the voice-controller receiver; and

said transmitter of said mobile part communicating with the voice-controller receiver by a wireless communication channel.

2. The voice controller according to claim 1, wherein said sound signal processor determines a degree of correlation between the sound signal detected by the sound detector and a sound signal corresponding to the sound information, said sound signal processor determines an acoustic delay between the sound signal detected by the sound detector and a sound signal corresponding to the sound information, and said sound signal processor corrects the sound signal detected by said sound detector while accounting for the acoustic delay.

3. The voice controller according to claim 2, wherein said sound signal processor determines the degree of correlation between the sound signal detected by cross-correlating the sound detector and the sound signal corresponding to the sound information.

4. The voice controller according to claim 2, wherein said sound signal processor subtracts the sound signal corresponding to the sound information from the sound signal detected by the sound detector, while accounting for the determined acoustic delay, to obtain a corrected sound signal to be supplied to the sound signal processor.

5. The voice controller according to claim 1, wherein said sound detector includes a number of microphones that are coupled to one another, the microphones having an acoustic phase shift between them, and said sound detector accounting for the acoustic phase shift present between the number of microphones.

6. The voice controller according to claim 1, including:

a keyboard in said sound detector, said keyboard programming said voice recognizer.

7. The voice controller according to claim 1, wherein said sound signal processor is associated with a number of sound sources, and said sound signal processor separately corrects for each of the number of sound sources.

8. A voice-controller system, comprising:

a voice-controlled apparatus having a voice-controller receiver;

a voice-controller having;

a sound source with a transmitter for transmitting sound information being obtained from audio signals of the sound source being mixed together encoded and/or modulated and converted into the sound information;

a sound detector detecting a sound signal containing a voice command, said sound detector having a voice recognizer recognizing the voice command, and said sound detector converting the voice command into a corresponding control signal for said voice-controlled apparatus;

a receiver receiving sound information from a transmitter associated with a sound source; and

a sound signal processor coupled to said sound detector and said receiver, said sound signal processor correcting the sound signal by eliminating the sound information from the sound signal to produce a corrected sound signal, and supplying the corrected sound signal to said voice recognizer for evaluation;

said sound detector, said receiver, said sound signal processor, and said voice recognizer being disposed in a

mobile part provided separately from said voice-controlled apparatus;

said mobile part having a transmitter transmitting the corresponding control signal to said voice-controller receiver;

said transmitter of said mobile part communicating with said voice-controller receiver by a wireless communication channel; and

a sound source associated with said transmitter transmitting the sound information to said receiver of said voice-controller, the sound information in each case describing the sound signal generated by the sound source.

9. The voice controller system according to claim 8, wherein said transmitter associated with said sound source communicates with said receiver associated with said voice-controller via said wireless communication channel.

10. The voice controller system according to claim 9, wherein said wireless communication channel is an infrared channel.

11. The voice controller system according to claim 9, wherein said wireless communication channel is a radio channel.

12. The voice controller system according to claim 8, wherein said voice-controller itself belongs to said sound source, so that the sound information transmitted by said transmitter to said receiver associated with said voice controller describes the sound signal generated by said voice-controller at that instant.

13. The voice controller system according to claim 8, wherein the voice-controlled apparatus is an item of electronic entertainment equipment.

14. The voice controller system according to claim 8, wherein said sound source is an item of electronic entertainment equipment.

15. A method of signal transmission between a sound source and a voice-controlled receiver for a voice-controlled apparatus, comprising the steps of:

transmitting sound information obtained from audio signals of the sound source being mixed together, encoded and/or modulated and converted into sound information;

detecting by a sound detector a sound signal containing a voice command, recognizing by a voice recognizer the voice command, and converting the voice command into a corresponding control signal for the voice-controlled apparatus;

receiving the sound information from a transmitter associated with the sound source; and

correcting the sound signal with a sound signal processor coupled with the sound detector by eliminating the sound information from the sound signal to produce a corrected sound signal, and supplying the corrected sound signal to the voice recognizer for evaluation.

16. The method of signal transmission of claim 15, further including the step of placing the sound detector, the receiver, the sound signal processor, and the voice recognizer in a mobile part provided separately from the voice-controlled apparatus.

17. The method of signal transmission of claim 16, further including the step of transmitting the corresponding control signal to the voice-controller receiver with a transmitter of the mobile part.

18. The method of signal transmission of claim 17, further including the step of communicating between the transmitter of the mobile part and the voice-controller receiver by a wireless communication channel.