JPH09116648A - Portable communication equipment - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To make ease of speech between an audibly handicapped person and a person of health in a way close to a phone conversation. SOLUTION: Character data entered from the portable information terminal equipment 1 are synthesized in voice by a voice synthesizer 10, the data are converted into a voice signal by a voice converter 11, the converted data are sent to an opposite terminal equipment 14 through a modem 2, the voice signal received from the opposite terminal equipment is recognized by a voice understanding device 12, converted into a character signal by a character converter 13 and displayed on a display screen of the portable information terminal equipment. Thus, each of speech between an audibly handicapped person and a person of health in a way close to a phone conversation.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a portable communication device such as a portable information terminal and a portable telephone which are compatible with multimedia.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art As portable communication devices, there are portable information terminals compatible with multimedia in addition to portable telephones capable of transmitting and receiving voice data.

The portable information terminal has a structure shown in FIG. 6 and enables data communication with a communication destination device.

In FIG. 1, the portable information terminal 1 is an FA
The transmission / reception signal is modulated / demodulated by the communication modem with X function 2 and connected to the telephone line 3. Telephone line 3 is B channel I
Data is transmitted / received to / from a telephone line 5 of a communication destination through an SDN (Service Integrated Digital Network) 4. The communication modem with FAX function 6 connected to the telephone line 5 modulates / demodulates data exchanged with the telephone line 5. The line terminating device 7 for the digital line connects the modem 6 and the communication destination device 8. The device 8 is a host computer, a personal computer, a FAX,
It is a device such as a portable information terminal.

In such a configuration, the portable information terminal 1 enables data communication with the device 8 by the following functions.

(1) Note-taking ... A simple word-processing function that can recognize handwritten characters and process them as they are.

(2) Message data communication: FAX communication / e-mail communication function that enables easy reporting and sudden inquiry and contact of meetings and business negotiations while away from home or on a business trip.

(3) Personal computer data viewer: When accessing electronic data from outside, wirelessly link it to a personal computer in the office by infrared communication, or use a modem to remotely access necessary data from an information service, Ability to see and save.

[0009]

The conventional portable telephone is
Since the communication is only voice, it cannot be used by deaf people. In this respect, the portable information terminal allows the hearing impaired person to communicate with the other party by using the FAX function and the personal computer communication function.

However, a person who communicates with a hearing-impaired person receives a hard copy or a soft copy of characters or images (pictures or drawings) for receiving data, and handwriting or keyboard input characters for transmitting data. It will be an image drawn with a mouse or the like.

For this reason, even if a person with a normal hearing cannot communicate directly with a hearing-impaired person, it becomes an indirect dialogue, which is similar to a telephone conversation between healthy persons. Simple communication is not possible.

It is an object of the present invention to provide a portable communication device which allows a hearing impaired person and a normal person to easily talk in a manner similar to a telephone call.

[0013]

According to the present invention, there is provided a mobile phone which is equipped with a modem for connecting to a communication line and a character input / output means capable of displaying and inputting character data on a screen to communicate with a partner terminal device. In the communication device for voice, when the character data is input from the character input / output unit, the character data is voice-synthesized, converted into a voice signal and transmitted from the modem to the partner terminal device; When the modem receives a voice signal from the terminal device, the voice signal is voice-recognized, the voice signal is converted into a character signal, and the voice understanding means is provided to display characters on the screen of the character input / output means. .

The voice understanding means is characterized in that it roughly extracts a word necessary for recognition from a voice signal, and learns and stores the necessary word as a standard pattern.

[0015]

FIG. 1 is a system configuration of a portable information terminal showing an embodiment of the present invention. 6 is different from FIG. 6 in that a voice synthesizing device 10 and a voice converting device 11 which are voice synthesizing means and a voice understanding which is a voice understanding means are provided between the portable information terminal 1 and the communication modem 2 with a FAX function. The device 12 and the character conversion device 13 are provided.

A communication line 15 including a telephone line and ISDN is provided between the modem 2 and the partner terminal device 14 as in the conventional case.
The data is transmitted by. Various devices such as the device 8 of FIG. 6 can be connected to the partner terminal device 14, but at least the telephone function is included.

With such a system configuration, the hearing impaired person can communicate with the partner of the partner terminal device 14 by telephone.

That is, when making a call from the portable information terminal 1, the contents (text) of the call are input and displayed on the display screen 1B using the pen (pointing device) 1A as characters, and the contents are displayed by the voice synthesizer 10. It is synthesized as voice data, converted into an actual voice signal by the voice conversion device 11, this voice signal is modulated by the modem 2, and transmitted as voice to the partner terminal device 14 side.

On the contrary, when receiving a voice signal from the partner terminal device 14, the contents of the voice signal received and demodulated by the modem 2 are voice-recognized by the voice understanding device 12, and this recognition data is converted into a character by the character conversion device 13. And display this character on the display screen 1B of the portable information terminal 1,
The received contents can be visually confirmed from this display screen.

Therefore, when the character information is transmitted from the portable information terminal 1, the partner terminal device 14 can receive it as a voice equivalent to the telephone call, and conversely, the partner terminal device 1
The mobile information terminal 1 can receive a voice call from the user as a display character. As a result, even if a hearing impaired person carries the portable information terminal 1 and a normal person makes a call using the telephone function of the partner terminal device 14, simple communication similar to a telephone call can be performed.

The portable information terminal 1 and the partner terminal device 1
In order to communicate image information with the
In the case of the communication modem with the AX function, it is realized by the function switching in which image data is directly exchanged between the portable information terminal 1 and the modem 2, as in the conventional case.

Further, the portable information terminal 1 can be replaced with a portable telephone having at least a character input / output function to obtain an equivalent function.

In the configuration of FIG. 1, various existing voice synthesizing devices can be used as the voice synthesizing device 10 and the voice converting device 11, for example, the voice synthesizing device according to the rule synthesizing method shown in FIG. 2 can be used.

The configuration of FIG. 2 performs syntax / semantic analysis by referring to a syntax / semantic dictionary from a morpheme string of a character sequence input (S
1), as a result of this analysis, a phoneme symbol string and a prosodic symbol are obtained,
A time rule (S2) and a parameter rule (S3) are applied to these to obtain a phoneme parameter time series and a prosodic pitch pattern, and sound source generation based on the pitch pattern and speech synthesis having a digital filter based on the parameter time series (S).
The synthetic voice is obtained by 4).

The voice understanding device 12 and the character conversion device 1 of FIG.
3 is realized by the system configuration of FIG. 3, for example. A voice signal from the modem 2 is converted into a digital signal by the A / D converter 21, a character code is obtained by the learning / pattern recognizing unit 22, a character data is converted by the character conversion device 13, and a screen is displayed on the portable information terminal 1. indicate.

The voice recognition process by the learning / pattern recognition unit 22 is the software process shown in FIG. The speech signal from which noise has been removed is subjected to a rough speech analysis by the frequency spectrum (S11), and the characteristic parameter is extracted from this analysis result and converted into a time series signal (S12).
Then, segmentation into voice units is performed (S1
3) The phoneme recognition is performed by comparing each segment with the phoneme standard pattern to create a phoneme sequence (S14).

This phoneme sequence is collated with a standard word pattern that has a learning function and is stored (S15), and word recognition is performed (S16). If there is no standard pattern in the word matching, the current phoneme is learned as a word standard pattern and additionally stored (S17, S18).

These word recognitions are repeated to obtain a phoneme sequence as a word sequence, these words are collated with the syntactic pattern (S19), and the syntactic recognition is performed by collating with the syntactic pattern (S20). If the recognition of the word syntax is accurate, it is checked whether the sentence of the word string is semantically valid (S21),
If the result is insufficient, the process is repeated until a valid result is obtained. When the valid result is obtained, the meaning recognition is performed again (S22), and the character recognition result is output.

In the voice recognition processing up to this point, noise / voice and necessary words are analyzed by voice analysis, and sentences are roughly extracted. For example, as shown in Fig. 5, word extraction from the sentence "Well, one guide map until Otsuki." Requires "Otsuki", "Annai", "Chizu", and "Ichimai". A word is extracted and the word is determined by its recognition.

[0030]

As described above, according to the present invention, a voice synthesizing means for voice synthesizing character data input to a portable communication device, converting the voice data into a voice signal and transmitting the voice signal to a partner terminal device,
Equipped with a voice comprehension unit that recognizes the voice signal received from the partner terminal device, converts it into a character signal, and displays it on the screen as characters, so that the hearing impaired person and the healthy person can easily talk in a manner similar to a telephone call. There is.

Further, since the voice understanding means is configured to roughly extract the words necessary for recognition from the voice signal and learn and save the necessary words as a standard pattern, the processing is simplified and the software configuration is realized. Can be easily mounted on a mobile phone or the like.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a system configuration diagram of a portable information terminal device showing an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a speech synthesizing process by a rule synthesizing method according to the embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a configuration diagram of a voice understanding system according to the embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a voice learning pattern recognition process according to the embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a spectrum of word speech recognition and an example of extraction according to the embodiment.

FIG. 6 is an example of a data communication system of a portable information terminal.

[Description of Codes] 1 ... Portable information terminal 2 ... FAX function modem 10 ... Speech synthesizer 11 ... Speech converter 12 ... Speech comprehension device 13 ... Character converter 14 ... Other terminal device 15 ... Communication line

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A portable communication device for communicating with a partner terminal device, comprising: a modem for connecting to a communication line; and character input / output means for displaying and inputting character data on a screen. When the character data is input from the output means, the character data is voice-synthesized, converted into a voice signal and transmitted from the modem to the partner terminal device; and a voice signal from the partner terminal device to the modem And a voice comprehension means for recognizing the voice signal upon reception, converting the voice signal into a character signal and displaying the character on the screen of the character input / output means. 2. The voice understanding means is configured to roughly extract a word necessary for recognition from a voice signal, and learn and save the necessary word as a standard pattern. A portable communication device as described.