Portable terminal and management system

• US 8,612,221 B2
• Filed: 02/02/2010
• Issued: 12/17/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 02/04/2009
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Phillips 66 Company
• Original Assignee: Seiko Epson Corporation (Seiko Group)
• Inventors: Ozawa, Tetsuo, Koseki, Koji, Yoshizawa, Junichi
• Primary Examiner(s): COLUCCI, MICHAEL C
• Application Number:
  US12/698,990
• Publication Number:
  US 20100198591A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,414 Days
• Field of Search: 701/420, 455/550.1, 455/403, 704/233, 704/270.1, 704/252, 704/570, 704/251, 717/101, 705/301, 702/150, 700/83, 379/88.03, 379/88.02, 370/328, 342/357.34
• US Class Current: 704/231
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/00 Administration; Management
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/00 Speech synthesis; Text to speech systems

Abstract

A portable terminal having an audio pickup means that acquires sound, an absolute position detection unit that detects the absolute position of the portable terminal, a relative position detection unit that detects the relative position of the portable terminal, and a speech recognition and synthesis unit that recognizes the audio acquired by the audio pickup means as speech, is achieved with a simple configuration. A portable terminal (1) that exchanges data with a server (2) has disposed to the portable terminal an audio pickup means that acquires sound, an absolute position detection unit (1-1) that detects the absolute position of the portable terminal, a relative position detection unit (1-2) that detects the relative position of the portable terminal, and a speech recognition and synthesis unit (1-3) that recognizes the audio acquired by the audio pickup means as speech.

Claims

1. A portable terminal comprising:

a microphone that acquires speech voiced by a user;

a position detection unit that detects a position of the portable terminal using an absolute position detector and a relative position detector; and

a speech recognition and synthesis unit that recognizes the speech using a database that is limited to work content terminology of work tasks used by workers at the position detected by the position detection unit.

2. The portable terminal described in claim 1, wherein:

the detection result of the absolute position detector is corrected using the detection result from the relative position detector.

3. The portable terminal described in claim 1, wherein:

the portable terminal can communicate with a server;

the speech recognition and synthesis unit of the portable terminal includes a speech to digital data converter that compares the acquired speech with predetermined speech data in the database, and recognizes the acquired speech as digital data; and

the absolute position data detected by the absolute position detector and the relative position data detected by the relative position detector are sent with the recognized digital data to the server.

4. The portable terminal described in claim 3, wherein:

the database including the predetermined speech data can be changed based on the position detected by the position detection unit.

5. The portable terminal described in claim 1, further comprising:

a digital data to speech converter that converts digital data received from the server to speech.

6. The portable terminal described in claim 1, wherein:

the portable terminal receives signals transmitted from a short-range communication device; and

the absolute position detector calculates the absolute position based on the signals.

7. The portable terminal described in claim 1, wherein:

the relative position detector is at least one sensor selected from a group including a 3-axis gyroscopic sensor, a 3-axis acceleration sensor, a barometric pressure sensor, and a geomagnetic sensor.

8. A management system comprising:

a portable terminal comprising;

a microphone that acquires speech voiced by a worker;

a position detection unit that detects a position of the portable terminal using an absolute position detector and a relative position detector;

a speech recognition and synthesis unit that recognizes the speech using a database that is limited to work content terminology of work tasks used by workers at the position detected by the position detection unit; and

a communication unit that sends position data from the position detection unit and speech recognition result data from the speech recognition and synthesis unit; and

a server comprising;

a server communication unit that receives the position data and the speech recognition result data; and

an identifying unit that identifies a work task of the worker using the position data and the speech recognition result data.

9. The management system described in claim 8, the server further comprising:

an instruction data generating unit that generates instruction data for the worker based on the identified work content from the identifying unit; and

the server communication unit sends the instruction data to the portable terminal.

10. A management method comprising:

acquiring a speech voiced by a worker and detecting a position of a portable terminal;

recognizing the speech using a database that is limited to work content terminology of work tasks used by workers at the detected position;

sending position data and speech recognition result data to a server; and

identifying a work task of the worker using the position data and the speech recognition result data by the server.