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Speech communications system for a vehicle and method of operating a speech communications system for a vehicle

  • US 8,214,219 B2
  • Filed: 09/15/2006
  • Issued: 07/03/2012
  • Est. Priority Date: 09/15/2006
  • Status: Expired due to Fees
First Claim
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1. In combination with a vehicle having a vehicle interior, a speech communications system comprising:

  • a microphone system provided in the vehicle interior, said microphone system being configured to detect audio information;

    a speech recognizer operatively connected to said microphone system;

    an interaction manager operatively connected to said speech recognizer, said interaction manager providing grammar information to said speech recognizer, said speech recognizer being configured to provide speech recognition results to said interaction manager;

    an acoustic echo canceller operatively connected to said speech recognizer, said acoustic echo canceller being configured to at least partially eliminate portions of the audio information detected by said microphone system;

    a sound localizer operatively connected to said microphone system and to said interaction manager, said sound localizer being configured to determine a positional sound source location in the vehicle interior;

    said microphone system including a first microphone array and a second microphone array, each of said microphone arrays including at least two microphones that do not operate as loudspeakers and that are not configured to be switched to an audio playback state;

    said at least two microphones of said first microphone array have respective positions which define a direction and a normal with respect to the direction such that the normal and the direction intersect at a center of said first microphone array, said at least two microphones of said second microphone array have respective positions which define a direction and a normal with respect to the direction such that the normal and the direction intersect at a center of said second microphone array;

    said center of said first microphone array and said center of said second microphone array being spaced from one another by a given spacing distance wherein said first microphone array is disposed on a first side of the vehicle interior and said second microphone array is disposed on a second side of the vehicle interior;

    said sound localizer determining a first sound source angle as a function of audio information provided by said first microphone array and said sound localizer determining a second sound source angle as a function of audio information provided by said second microphone array;

    said sound localizer determining a positional sound source location in dependence on the first sound source angle and the second sound source angle;

    said speech recognizer being configured to recognize a spoken keyword; and

    said interaction manager being configured to retrieve a stored dialog context and to start a speech interaction triggered by the spoken keyword;

    a text-to-speech unit operatively connected to said interaction manager; and

    said interaction manager being configured to selectively prompt said text-to-speech unit to provide a speech output and to interrupt a speech output.

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