Method and apparatus for controlling outgoing call in vehicle equipped with voice recognition function

• US 9,628,617 B2
• Filed: 11/19/2014
• Issued: 04/18/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 07/11/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hyundai Motor Company (Hyundai Motor Group)
• Original Assignee: Hyundai Motor Company (Hyundai Motor Group)
• Inventors: Joh, Jae Min, Bang, Kyu Seop, Paik, Soon Kwon, Lee, Kyung Chul, Kwak, Woo Young
• Primary Examiner(s): Rachedine, Mohammed
• Application Number:
  US14/548,280
• Publication Number:
  US 20160014273A1
• Time in Patent Office: 881 Days
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 16/0373 Voice control in general G10L
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04883 for inputting data by handwriting, e.g. gesture or text
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/063 Training
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/22 Procedures used during a speech recognition process, e.g. man-machine dialogue
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/28 Constructional details of speech recognition systems
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 17/00 Speaker identification or verification techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 2015/0635 updating or merging of old and new templates; Mean values; Weighting
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 2015/223 Execution procedure of a spoken command
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 2015/228 of application context
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 25/54 for retrieval
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/271 controlled by voice recognition
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/2757 by data transmission, e.g. downloading
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/6091 including a wireless interface
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72412 using two-way short-range wireless interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2201/38 Displays
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2201/40 using speech recognition speech recognition per se G10L15/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2250/02 including a Bluetooth interface
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42153 by subscriber
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42178 by downloading data to substation equipment

Abstract

An outgoing call control method for an in-vehicle head unit equipped with a voice recognition function includes connecting Bluetooth communication with a user device when a vehicle is powered on. Whether or not an existing voice recognition database is present is checked. Phone book information is downloaded from the user device through the connected Bluetooth communication. Voice recognition for an outgoing call is performed using the existing voice recognition database during download of the phone book information if the existing voice recognition database is present.

Claims

1. An outgoing call control method for an in-vehicle head unit equipped with a voice recognition function, the method comprising steps of:

connecting Bluetooth communication with a user device when a vehicle is powered on;

checking whether an existing voice recognition database is present;

downloading phone book information from the user device through the connected Bluetooth communication;

performing the voice recognition for the outgoing call after the step of checking the existing voice recognition database using a dummy voice recognition database if the existing voice recognition database is not present; and

performing the voice recognition for the outgoing call using the existing voice recognition database during download of the phone book information if the existing voice recognition database is present.

2. The outgoing call control method according to claim 1, wherein a notification message indicating that available phone book information is not present in the in-vehicle head unit is output when a user'"'"'s input voice is recognized using the dummy voice recognition database.

3. The outgoing call control method according to claim 2, wherein the notification message is output using at least one selected from a popup notification window and a voice.

4. The outgoing call control method according to claim 1, wherein the dummy voice recognition database is created using dummy phone book information comprising frequently used names, and a dummy phone book does not contain telephone number information corresponding to the names.

5. The outgoing call control method according to claim 4, wherein the number of the names contained in the dummy voice recognition database is based on a voice recognition rate.

6. The outgoing call control method according to claim 5, wherein a confidence value used by a voice recognition engine of the in-vehicle head unit is adjusted based on the number of the names and the voice recognition rate.

7. The outgoing call control method according to claim 4, wherein the number of the names contained in the dummy voice recognition database is based on a voice recognition response time.

8. The outgoing call control method according to claim 1, wherein the dummy voice recognition database is retained based on dummy phone book information based on a country or local area.

9. The outgoing call control method according to claim 8, wherein the in-vehicle head unit is interlocked with an in-vehicle global positioning system (GPS) module and the dummy voice recognition database corresponding to a current location of the in-vehicle head unit is used in the voice recognition for the outgoing call.