Chatting system, method and apparatus for virtual pet

• US 8,645,479 B2
• Filed: 12/28/2009
• Issued: 02/04/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 06/28/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Tencent Technology Company Limited (Tencent Holdings Limited)
• Original Assignee: Tencent Technology Company Limited (Tencent Holdings Limited)
• Inventors: Liu, Yunfeng, Yang, Haisong, Liu, Zhiyuan, Yu, Rongling
• Primary Examiner(s): Louie, Oscar
• Assistant Examiner(s): Liu, Lin
• Application Number:
  US12/647,986
• Publication Number:
  US 20100106789A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,499 Days
• Field of Search: 709/206, 709/202, 704/251, 704/257
• US Class Current: 709/206
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/35 Discourse or dialogue representation

Abstract

Embodiments of the present invention provides a chatting system for a virtual pet, including a pet client, configured to receive a natural language sentence of a pet master, and send the natural language sentence to a virtual pet server; the virtual pet server, configured to forward the natural language sentence to a questioning and answering server, and return a natural language response to the pet client; the questioning and answering server, configured to perform processing of natural language understanding on the natural language sentence, obtain language characteristics of the pet master, generate the natural language response according to a natural language understanding result and the language characteristics of the pet master, and return the natural language response to the virtual pet server. Embodiments of the present invention further provide a chatting method for a virtual pet and a questioning and answering server.

Claims

1. A chatting system for a virtual pet, comprising:

a pet client device including a processor coupled to a memory storing instructions for execution by the processor receiving a natural language sentence of a pet master and sending the natural language sentence to a virtual pet server device including a processor coupled to a memory storing instructions for execution by the processor;

the virtual pet server device forwarding the natural language sentence to a question and answer server device including a processor coupled to a memory storing instructions for execution by the processor, and return a natural language response to the pet client device;

the question and answer server device processing natural language understanding on the natural language sentence;

obtaining language characteristics of the pet master and save the language characteristics of the pet master into a pet master language information base;

generating the natural language response according to a natural language understanding result and the saved language characteristics of the pet master; and

returning the natural language response to the virtual pet server device;

wherein the language characteristics of the pet master include response habits commonly used by a user for responding to a certain natural language;

the question and answer server device further adjusting the language characteristics of the pet master according to the natural language understanding result, history chatting records of the pet master, and the saved language characteristics of the pet master, and save the adjusted language characteristics of the pet master into the pet master language information base.

2. The chatting system according to claim 1, wherein the virtual pet server device manages pet attributes and sends the pet attributes to the question and answer server device;

and the question and answer server device further generates the natural language response according to the natural language understanding result, the language characteristics of the pet master and the pet attributes.

3. The chatting system according to claim 2, wherein the pet attributes are stored in a pet attribute base connected with the virtual pet server device.

4. The chatting system according to claim 3, wherein the pet attribute base stores pet master attributes;

and the question and answer server device further generates the natural language response according to the natural language understanding result, the language characteristics of the pet master, and the pet attributes and/or the pet master attributes.

5. The chatting system according to claim 1, wherein the pet master language information base stores the language characteristics of the pet master and the adjusted language characteristics of the pet master.

6. The chatting system according to claim 5, the pet master language information base is set in the questioning and answering server device, or set independently.

7. The chatting system according to claim 1, further comprising:

a communication platform between the pet client device and the virtual pet server device;

wherein the communication platform forwards the natural language sentence and the natural language response between the pet client device and the virtual pet server device.

8. The chatting system according to claim 7, wherein the communication platform is an Instant Messaging, IM, communication platform, a short messaging service communication platform, a network interface communication platform, or an Email communication platform.

9. The chatting system according to claim 7 further comprising at least two virtual pet server devices, and the system further comprises a dispatch server set between the communication platform and the at least two virtual pet server devices;

and the dispatch server receives the natural language sentence of the pet master from the communication platform, and dispatch the natural language sentence to each virtual pet server device according to a load balancing principle.

10. The chatting system according to claim 1, the pet client device is set in an IM tool.

11. A question and answer server, comprising:

a processor coupled to a memory storing instructions for execution by the processor;

a sentence understanding engine module, when the instructions are executed by the processor processing natural language understanding on a natural language sentence received by the question and answer server, causing the question and answer server to send a natural language understanding result respectively to a learning engine unit and a reasoning engine unit, and causing the question and answer server to send a natural language response generated by the reasoning engine unit;

the learning engine module, when the instructions are executed by the processor, obtaining language characteristics of a pet master according to a natural language understanding result, and save the language characteristics into a pet master language information base, wherein the language characteristics of the pet master include response habits commonly used by a user for responding to a certain natural language; and

the reasoning engine module generating the natural language response according to the natural language understanding result and the saved language characteristics of the pet master; and

the pet master language information base storing the language characteristics of the pet master,

the learning engine unit, when the instructions are executed by the processor, further adjusting the language characteristics of the pet master according to the natural language understanding result, history chatting records of the pet master, or the saved language characteristics of the pet master, and saving the adjusted language characteristics into the pet master language information base.

12. The question and answer server according to claim 11, further comprising a knowledge base, saving reasoning knowledge, and wherein the reasoning engine unit generates the natural language response according to the natural language understanding result, the language characteristics of the pet master, or the reasoning knowledge.

13. The question and answer server according to claim 12, wherein the knowledge base stores the reasoning knowledge in a format of a pair of questioning and answering sentences.

14. The question and answer server according to claim 12, wherein the reasoning engine unit obtains pet attributes or pet master attributes, and generates the natural language response according to the natural language understanding result, the reasoning knowledge stored in the knowledge base, the pet attributes, the pet master attributes, or the language characteristics in the pet master language information base.

15. The question and answer server according to claim 11, wherein the sentence understanding engine unit performs operations including word segmentation, question trunk extraction, question type determination, or topic determination on the natural language sentence.