JP2003131695A - Voice recognition equipment, and unit and method for voice recognition equipment control - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a remote operation technique which can control only equipment to be operated through individual voice recognition. SOLUTION: An equipment name such as an optionally given pet name and operation related terms of the equipment are previously registered as data in the equipment while made to individually correspond to each other and when the equipment name such as the pet name and operation related terms are inputted as an operation indication in voice from a microphone, etc., the voice is converted into corresponding data, which are matched against the registered data to specify the equipment as an object to be controlled and determines respective operation modes when it is judged that the converted data match the registered data.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a device operated by remote control by voice.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Normally, a so-called remote controller, which is a remote control device for converting a user's operation into infrared data and transmitting the infrared data to a device body, is used for each device in order to control a device such as a television or an air conditioner from a remote place. Has been done. JP 2001-1
In Japanese Patent No. 97379, a voice recognition device is incorporated in a home electric appliance instead of a remote controller, a word corresponding to a command to operate the device is extracted and recognized from a user's voice, and the recognized word is used for device operation by a dictionary. It describes home appliances that can be converted into commands and run. In addition, JP-A-5-7385
The gazette describes a technology for gathering a device control dictionary, which is a large-scale voice recognition home electric appliance system in which several kinds of electric home appliances such as a television and a video are exclusively connected, and which is conventionally provided for each device. ing.

[0003]

However, there are usually a plurality of appliances such as household appliances in the room of a general household. In addition, the number of units and the functions will change due to replacement or additional purchases. For example, it is a normal situation to have two TVs from different manufacturers in the living room with air conditioners and stereos scattered around, and to buy another air conditioner in the room next door. If all those devices operate by voice recognition, for example, it becomes impossible to distinguish which device you want to operate, and if you try to move the air conditioner in the living room, the air conditioner in the next room will also react. For example, an operation contrary to the user's intention may be performed. An object of the present invention is to provide a device that can be remotely controlled by voice recognition so that a device intended by a user operates as supported.

[0004]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION According to the present invention, a microphone for collecting sound, a voice recognition means for analyzing a voice input through the microphone and converting it into a word, and a device name arbitrarily given by a user are provided. A device name registration means to be stored in the device, an operation word dictionary storage means in which a plurality of words are registered corresponding to each operation of the device performed by the user, and a function determination means to determine a function to be executed by the device. Equipped with.
The voice recognition means normally analyzes the voice signals collected by the microphones and detects the voice pattern registered as the name of the equipment by the equipment name registration means. When the voice recognition unit detects the name of the device, the voice recognition unit analyzes the voice that follows it, converts it into a word, and sends it to the device control unit. The device control means compares the sent word with the operation word dictionary of the operation dictionary storage means to retrieve which operation the user has instructed. Then, the device is controlled to execute the function of the search result. That is, the device equipped with the voice recognition device control device receives and operates a series of phrases following its own name as an operation command for itself from the user. Then, even if the user has a plurality of devices with similar or exactly the same function in the room, by calling the device name and giving an operation instruction,
Enables natural and easy equipment separation. In addition, the name of the device can be freely assigned so that the user can easily call it, so there is little error or confusion.

[0005]

1 is a hardware configuration diagram showing the configuration of an embodiment of a voice recognition device control apparatus of the present invention (FIG. 1 (b)). The device normally operates as a part of a function incorporated in a device such as a home electric appliance. This embodiment is an example in which the voice recognition device control device is mounted on an air conditioner having a main board 2 for controlling the main body and an operation panel board 3 with buttons arranged in the form of a board 1 on which electronic components are mounted. (FIG. 1 (a)). The main body main board 2 for controlling the air conditioner main body, the operation panel board 3 and the board 1 of the voice recognition device control device are connected by a serial cable 4, and the user instruction received by the voice recognition device control device 1 or the operation panel 3 is the serial cable. This is transmitted by sending command data to the main body main board 2 via 4. The main body main board 2 performs processing corresponding to the received command data and executes the operation instructed by the user. The substrate 1 of the voice recognition device control device is a microprocessor 101.
RO such as EEPROM and flash memory for storing system programs, dictionaries, device names, etc.
M102, RAM10 which is the work area of the program
3, the microphone 104 and the voice processing unit 105 are connected by the system bus 100, and the microprocessor 10
1, a changeover switch 106, an LED (light emitting diode) 107, etc. are connected.

2, FIG. 3, and FIG. 4 are ROMs of the substrate 1 of FIG.
10 is a flowchart of a function determination program and a flowchart of a device name registration program executed by the microprocessor 101 installed in 102, and an operation word dictionary. Hereinafter, the operation of the present device will be described using an example in which the present device returns the user's voice instruction to the function content to be executed by the air conditioner body and notifies the main board 2 of the function contents. When the power switch of the main body of the air conditioner is turned on and power is supplied to the main board from the main device, the program shown in FIG. 2 starts.
First, in step 1001, the voice processing unit 105 is activated in the name recognition mode, and the voice recognition process of analyzing the voice collected from the microphone 104 and converting it into a word is started. The operation of voice recognition is as follows. First, the analog audio signal taken in from the microphone 104 enters the audio processing unit 105. The voice processing unit 105 converts the analog voice signal taken in into a digital signal by an A / D converter, performs filter processing such as emphasis and noise removal, and then performs spectrum analysis to convert the voice signal into a pattern such as a power spectrum. Convert to a parameter. Recognize the speech as a list of words by performing similarity calculation with the word dictionary in which the standard pattern parameters of the words are registered, and selectively extracting the words that have the parameters closest to the pattern parameters of the captured speech. To do. Regardless of the above method, the voice processing unit may have any method and pattern parameter format of the voice signal as long as it can perform so-called unspecified speaker word recognition processing. The voice processing unit 105 activated in the name recognition mode in step 1001 compares the power spectrum pattern of the captured voice with the word dictionary, and does not use the word dictionary, but the voice spectrum of its own name registered. A process of determining whether or not the pattern matches the pattern is performed. If it is not the registered name, the data is discarded, and if it matches the registered voice spectrum pattern, the device code is written in the buffer area on the RAM 103. The equipment code of the air conditioner equipped with this controller is "0
001 ".

The microprocessor 101 executes step 10
At 02, the writing of the text data "0001" is waited for in the buffer area. When the text is written, the process proceeds to step 1003, and the voice processing unit 105 is changed to the all-word recognition mode. The device code is written in the RAM because the voice processing unit 105 sends a signal to the microprocessor 101 to start the device control process. Therefore, it is not limited to the process of writing the device code, and the device code may be transmitted by means such as sending an electric signal.
When the speech processing unit 105 enters the all-word recognition mode, it recognizes all speech using the word dictionary and converts it into words.
It is written in the buffer area on the RAM 103 in the form of kana text data. Step 1 for microprocessor
At 004, the operation of reading the text data in the buffer area is performed. Then, the text data read in step 1005 is compared with the words included in the operation word dictionary,
Find a matching set feature.

FIG. 3 shows an example of an operation word dictionary of the air conditioner of this embodiment. The operation word dictionary is a list of functions of the present air conditioner that can be operated by the user, and corresponding kana text data candidates of words indicating selection of the functions are arranged correspondingly. Therefore, this device operation dictionary is individual for each device equipped with this voice recognition remote controller. The air conditioner of this embodiment is
There are four types of operation: "cooling", "heating", "dry", and "blast", and the temperature is set from 20 ° C to 30 ° C at 1 ° C.
It can be specified in increments, and the wind speed can be selected from three types: "strong", "weak", and "automatic". On the other hand, since the voice processing unit outputs the word recognition result as kana text data, the dictionary becomes as shown in FIG. When a function is found in step 1005, the process proceeds to step 1006, command data corresponding to the function is created, and the command data is sent to the main control unit of the device body. In the case of the air conditioner of the present embodiment, when the device is normally controlled manually, the data of button depression is transmitted from the operation panel provided with the button group to the main controller of the air conditioner main body through the serial cable. Therefore, in the case of the present embodiment, step 1006 carries out an operation of creating electronic information for pressing this button and sending it to the serial cable. Then, returning to step 1004, the written text is read and the matching process with the operation word dictionary is repeated. If there is a mismatch in which no function matching the air conditioner operation word dictionary is found, the process proceeds to step 1007. In step 1007, the number of mismatches is counted. In the case of this embodiment,
If a mismatch occurs twice in succession, it is considered that the remote control operation has ended, and the process proceeds to step 1008. The number of times of mismatch count is arbitrarily determined according to the usage status of the main body device. In step 1008, the voice processing unit 105 is returned to the name recognition mode, and the process returns to step 1002 to wait for the user to call the name of the air conditioner.

FIG. 3 is a flow chart of a program for registering a device name when a name is given when the air conditioner is first purchased or the name is once changed. When the changeover switch 106 is turned ON in the state of step 1002 of FIG. 2, the process jumps to the beginning of the program of FIG. 3 and the registration of the device name is started. In step 2001, the microprocessor 101 sets the voice processing unit 10
5 is changed to the name registration mode, and in step 2002, the LED 107 for input instruction is turned on. This is to show that the user is ready to input the name of the device to be input by voice from the microphone. When the user inputs the name, the LED 107 is temporarily turned off, and the voice processing unit 10
5 is converted into a pattern parameter and temporarily stored in the RAM buffer as in the normal recognition processing. Step 200
In step 4, the pattern parameter of the above name is repeated several times as necessary to determine the name standard pattern parameter. Then, in step 2005, the name registration area on the ROM 102 is cleared, the newly created pattern parameter is written in step 2006, and the name registration processing is ended. If there are two air conditioners and the names are "Air-chan" and "Kon-chan", respectively, the user calls "Air-chan, air conditioner, start at 24 degrees" to obtain the word as the voice recognition result. "Reibo"
"Nijuyon" and "Star" are extracted, and the functions of "Cooling", "24 ° C" and "Run" are determined by the program in Fig. 2, and "Cooling" and "24" on the operation panel of one air conditioner are selected.
The same operation as pressing the "° C""startoperation" button can be performed.

In the above embodiment, the voice recognition device control device is mounted as a component board of the main equipment, that is, a component board separate from the main board and the operation panel, but the mounting form is of course limited to this example. Instead, for example, it may be completely integrated with the main body. Further, in the above embodiment, the mode is provided for the voice recognition process, and the process of recognizing only the name of the device and the process of converting all the voice signals into words are separated. The device name may be detected from the text data. In this case, not the voice pattern parameter but the text data is registered in the device name registration means.

Further, when the present invention is mounted on a remote controller for controlling a large number of devices such as a home gateway, device codes are assigned to controllable devices by serial numbers, for example, and the number of devices controlled by the device name registration means. Names are registered, the operation word dictionaries are stored by the number of devices controlled by the operation dictionary storage means, and the voice processing portion of the name recognition mode in step 1001 matches the pattern parameters of the plurality of names. If the name of any device is recognized, the device code of the device is written in the RAM 103. The macro processor can also control a plurality of devices by performing the function matching of the words recognized by the subsequent all-word recognition using the operation word dictionary of the device indicated by the device code.

[0012]

According to the present invention, even when a user has a plurality of devices having similar or exactly the same functions in the room, it is only necessary to call the device name and give an operation instruction, which is natural and easy. Remote control of equipment by voice becomes possible.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of a voice recognition device control apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart of a device operation program for a controller according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart of a device name registration program for a controller according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is an example of an operation word dictionary of a controller according to an embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 ... Voice recognition device control device, 2 ... Air conditioner main board, 3 ... Air conditioner operation panel board, 100 ... System bus, 101 ... Microprocessor unit (MP
U), 102 ... Read only memory (ROM),
103 ... Random access memory (RAM), 104
... Microphone, 105 ... Audio processing unit, 106 ... Button switch, 107 ... LED.

   ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continued front page    (72) Inventor Takayuki Yamamoto             292 Yoshida-cho, Totsuka-ku, Yokohama-shi, Kanagawa             Ceremony Hitachi Digital Media Development Book             Department F term (reference) 5D015 HH13 KK01 LL10 LL12

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A voice recognition device control apparatus for controlling a voice recognition device which recognizes a voice and operates, wherein the input voice is converted into a pattern of an electric signal, and the voice pattern signal is arbitrarily changed. A voice recognition device control apparatus comprising a structure for matching with pattern data of a registered device name and changing a voice recognition operation mode according to a result of the matching. 2. An input voice is converted into an electric signal pattern, the voice pattern signal is collated with pattern data of an arbitrarily registered device name, and a voice recognition operation mode is changed according to a result of the collation. It has a means having a configuration, a device name registration means for registering an arbitrary name given to the device as an electric signal pattern, and an operation word dictionary storage means for registering a plurality of words corresponding to each operation of the device. Then
It is provided with means for collating the input voice pattern signal with the pattern data of the device name registered by the device name registering means, and if they match, changing the input voice pattern signal to the operation word dictionary collating operation. A voice recognition device characterized by the above. 3. A sound collecting means such as a microphone, a voice recognizing means for analyzing a voice input through the sound collecting means and converting it into a list of words, and a device name arbitrarily given by a user are stored in the device. A device name registration means for causing the device to operate, an operation word dictionary storage means for registering a plurality of words for each operation of the device performed by the user, and a function determining means for determining the content of the operation to be executed by the device. In the voice recognition equipment control device, the equipment name registration means stores the name of the equipment arbitrarily named by the user in the equipment, and the voice recognition means analyzes and registers the voice signals collected by the sound collection means. The name of the device being detected, the voice signal inputted via the sound collecting means following the detected name of the device is converted into word data, and the function determining means is the one following the name. Or multiple word data Voice recognition device control apparatus characterized by determining the content of the operation dictionary storage means against the corresponding dictionary device operation and words stored operation. 4. A voice recognition device control method for controlling an electronic device by voice, comprising the steps of converting the name of an arbitrary device into data and registering the input voice, and converting the input voice into the data. The step of changing to an electric signal pattern for name matching for matching with the name, the step of analyzing the input voice only when the matching result matches and converting it into word data or its combination, and the converted one Or, through a step of collating a plurality of word data with a dictionary for device operation registered in advance,
A method for controlling a voice recognition device, comprising controlling an electronic device.