Voice recognition dialing unit

• US 5,222,121 A
• Filed: 06/19/1990
• Issued: 06/22/1993
• Est. Priority Date: 06/19/1989
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: NEC Corporation
• Original Assignee: NEC Corporation
• Inventors: Shimada, Keiko
• Primary Examiner(s): BROWN, THOMAS
• Application Number:
  US07/540,436
• Time in Patent Office: 1,099 Days
• Field of Search: 379/88, 379/355, 379/354, 379/58, 379/63, 379/216
• US Class Current: 379/88.03
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/22 Procedures used during a speech recognition process, e.g. man-machine dialogue
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/271 controlled by voice recognition

Abstract

A voice recognition dialing unit of a telephone mounted on a vehicle or similar mobile body and which allows a call to be originated with ease. When the user of the telephone enters a voice command on a voice inputting section, the dialing unit originates a call automatically and thereby connects the other party to the telephone line. In a call origination procedure, the operations for call origination and the verifications are performed between the user and the unit in an interactive sequence. In a preferred embodiment, the unit has a particular call origination procedure in which, when the other party recognized by the unit is wrong as determined by the user by verification, lower-place candidates for the other party are called up in response to a particular voice command. In an alternative embodiment, the unit indicates the other party by voicing a name for verification purpose. The alternative embodiment selects and stores only the name of the other party in response to an entered voice signal and, in the event of response for verification, combines the name having been stored and response information stored beforehand to produce composite response voice.

Claims

1. A voice recognition dialing unit comprising:

storing means for registering, in on-to-one correspondence, names and telephone numbers of subscribers with whom said dialing unit may communicate;

voice recognizing means for recognizing a voice which is inputted by a calling person;

indicating means for indicating predetermined response information for responding to the calling person;

call originating dial generating means for generating a dial signal associated with a subscriber who is recognized by said voice recognizing means; and

processing means for executing a call origination procedure by controlling said voice recognizing means, said storing means, said indicating means, and said call originating dial generating means;

said processing means being operatively connected to said storing means and said voice recognizing means so as to effect a call origination procedure for causing, in response to each of a plurality of utterances of a predetermined voice command uttered by the calling person, said indicating means to respectively, sequentially make an indication of a next one of a plurality of candidates to be called which are registered in said storing means, said voice command being independent of said names registered in said storing means.

2. A unit as claimed in claim 1, wherein said processing means causes, in response to said utterances of said voice command, said indicating means to sequentially indicate the telephone numbers of said plurality of candidates.

3. A voice recognition dialing unit comprising:

a voice inputting section for inputting a voice of a calling person;

a voice characteristics extracting section of extracting voice characteristics of said voice entered on said voice inputting section;

a registered voice recording section in which voice characteristics of the calling person are registered and recorded beforehand;

a storing section for storing telephone numbers of subscribers registered in said registered voice recording section together with names associated one-to-one with said telephone numbers;

a recognizing section for recognizing said voice as a voice command by comparing said voice with the voice characteristics registered in said registered voice recording section;

a processing section for executing, in response to said voice command, call origination processing according to a call origination procedure which is loaded as a call origination program beforehand;

a call originating section for reading a dial number of an associated subscriber in response to a call origination instruction from said processing section;

a dial pulse generating section for generating a calling signal in response to an instruction from said call origination section;

a registered response storing for storing predetermined response information; and

an indicating section for indicating the response information;

said processing section having a call origination procedure for allowing, when the calling person determines that a result of an indicating produced by said indicating section is different from the voice command, the calling person to enter a plurality of utterances of a particular voice command which each cause said indicating section to respectively, sequentially indicate a next one of a plurality of candidates to be called registered in said storing section, said voice command being independent of said names stored in said storing section.

4. A unit as claimed in claim 3, wherein said processing section causes, in response to said utterances of said voice command, said indicating section to sequentially indicate the telephone numbers of said plurality of candidates.