Multilingual dialogue system and controlling method thereof

• US 8,484,011 B2
• Filed: 11/30/2009
• Issued: 07/09/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 01/06/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Inventors: Jang, Jun Won, Park, Ki Cheol, Ha, Tae Sin, Han, Woo Sup
• Primary Examiner(s): Vo, Huyen X.
• Application Number:
  US12/591,734
• Publication Number:
  US 20100174523A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,317 Days
• Field of Search: 704/257, 704/259, 704/277, 704/270, 704/270.1, 704 1- 10, 704/233, 704/235, 704/251, 704/255, 1/1
• US Class Current: 704/2
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/18 using natural language modelling

Abstract

A multilingual dialogue system enabling a user to conduct dialogue in various languages, and a controlling method thereof. According to the multilingual dialogue system and the controlling method, reliability of the user'"'"'s language can be evaluated, thereby coping with errors generated during dialogue.

Claims

1. A multilingual dialogue system comprising:

a sound input unit to be input with sound of a language spoken by a user;

a common dialogue module to produce dialogue contents to be supplied to the user by translating text of the input sound into a common language; and

a sound output unit to selectively supply the user with the dialogue contents in the form of sound, based on a degree of error of the dialogue contents in the common language.

2. The multilingual dialogue system according to claim 1, further comprising a reliability evaluator to evaluate reliability of the dialogue contents, based on the degree of error of the dialogue contents.

3. The multilingual dialogue system according to claim 2, wherein the reliability evaluator includes an evaluation function generating unit to generate a numerical value indicating the reliability using a plurality of evaluation factors.

4. The multilingual dialogue system according to claim 3, wherein the evaluation function generating unit generates a reliability evaluation function corresponding to the reliability according to:

f(t)=(AMEV+LMEV1+LMEV2+CAEV)/4

wherein, AMEV refers to a value evaluating the user'"'"'s language using a sound model, being set in a range between 0 and 1, LMEV1refers to a value evaluating the user'"'"'s language using a language model, being set in a range between 0 and 1, LMEV2 refers to a value evaluating the common language using an other language model, being set in a range between 0 and 1, and CAEV refers to a value evaluating the common language using a situation recognition model, being set in a range between 0 and 1.

5. The multilingual dialogue system according to claim 2, wherein the common dialogue module selects dialogue contents based on the evaluated reliability.

6. The multilingual dialogue system according to claim 1, further comprising a key input unit for the user to designate the language spoken by the user.

7. The multilingual dialogue system according to claim 1, wherein the common dialogue module includes a language discerning unit to discern the language being spoken by the user.

8. The multilingual dialogue system according to claim 7, wherein the language discernment unit applies a plurality of language models.

9. The multilingual dialogue system according to claim 8, wherein the plurality of language models include a parallel phone recognition language model (PPRLM) and a Gaussian mixture model (GMM).

10. The multilingual dialogue system according to claim 1, wherein the common dialogue module comprises a translator that translates texts in the user'"'"'s language to texts in the common language and vice versa.

11. The multilingual dialogue system according to claim 1, wherein the degree of error of the dialogue contents is based on a reliability evaluation function such that the dialogue contents are provided to the user when the reliability evaluation function is greater than a threshold value.

12. The multilingual dialogue system according to claim 1, wherein when the language spoken by the user is the same as the common language, then the translated texts are directly analyzed.

13. A controlling method for a multilingual dialogue system, comprising:

inputting, by a processor, sound of a user'"'"'s language;

converting, by a processor, the input sound to texts using one common language and producing dialogue contents based on the texts in the common language; and

supplying, selectively, the user with the dialogue contents in the form of sound, based on a degree of error of the dialogue contents in the common language.

14. The controlling method according to claim 13, wherein the user directly designates the language spoken by the user.

15. The controlling method according to claim 13, wherein a plurality of language models are used to discern the language being spoken by the user.

16. The controlling method according to claim 15, wherein the plurality of language models include a PPRLM and a GMM.

17. The controlling method according to claim 13, wherein reliability of the dialogue contents is numerically evaluated.

19. The controlling method according to claim 17, wherein the dialogue contents are selected based on the evaluated reliability.

18. A controlling method for a multilingual dialogue system, comprising:

inputting, by a processor, sound of a user'"'"'s language;

converting, by a processor, the input sound to texts using one common language and producing dialogue contents based on the texts in the common language; and

supplying the user with the dialogue contents in the form of sound,

wherein reliability of the dialogue contents is numerically evaluated, and

wherein the reliability is evaluated using a sound model with respect to the user'"'"'s language, a language model with respect to the user'"'"'s language, an other language model with respect to the common model, and a situation recognition model with respect to the common language.