JP2003228395A - Method and apparatus for equipment control by voice recognition - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a method and an apparatus for equipment control by voice recognition which can secure safety by disabling the operation of at least important equipment to illegally or unfairly be controlled. <P>SOLUTION: An equipment authenticated with a password that the provider side of the equipment predetermined and an equipment authenticated with a password that a user registers are predetermined; and the equipment authenticated with the password that the user registers is controlled when it is judged that a recognized voice is the password that the user voices and registered in a step wherein the user voices and registers the password and the voice is recognized to judge whether or not the voice is the password that the user voiced and registered. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2003,JPO

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a device control method by voice recognition and a device control device by voice recognition, and more particularly, to a device control method by voice recognition using a password and a device control device by voice recognition.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Since the voice recognition technology has been developed to a practical level, voice recognition has been performed in various technical fields. One application is to give commands or wishes of an operator or user via voice to control the operation of various devices. For example, in a car navigation system or the like, instead of manually operating a button or the like on an operation panel or a remote controller, a system in which a destination is recognized by voice and a guidance operation is performed has been put into practical use. However, when the operation of the device is controlled by voice recognition, it is necessary to prevent the person other than the original operator or the user from illegally or illegally operating the device.

Therefore, it has been known that a predetermined password is provided for controlling the operation of a device by voice recognition, and the predetermined device is operated only when the password is uttered. As the operation control of the device by the voice recognition using the password, for example, there is one described in JP-A-10-73448. In the invention described in this publication, a voice "voice on" is preset as a password, and when a driver of a vehicle utters "voice on",
After that, it becomes possible to control the operation of various devices such as the wiper, the lighting device, and the navigation system by voice by starting the voice input process thereafter.

[0004]

However, in the above-mentioned conventional device control method and device by voice recognition, the password is limited to the one predetermined by the manufacturer. Therefore, once the password used by the automobile manufacturer A is known. A person can operate various devices by recognizing the password of another person's car made by the automobile manufacturer A without permission or illegally, and it is extremely problematic in terms of safety and maintenance of the devices and equipment of the car. . That is, in the above-mentioned conventional method, it cannot be said that the password sufficiently plays the role of a valid key. Therefore, if voice recognition is used to control an object such as a car that requires safety management, there is a safety problem. Will be accompanied by a danger.

Therefore, an object of the present invention is to ensure safety in a method and apparatus for controlling equipment by voice recognition, by preventing at least important operation of equipment from being illegally or illegally controlled. To do.

[0006]

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention predefines a device that authenticates with a password predetermined by the device provider side and a device that authenticates with a password registered by the user. In order to register the password, the user utters the password to register the password, and then recognizes the voice to determine whether or not the password is registered by the user, and in the determining step, When it is determined that the recognized voice is the password registered by the user uttering, the device to be authenticated is controlled by the password registered by the user.

[0007]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION Preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a preferred embodiment of a device control apparatus by voice recognition for realizing a device control method by voice recognition according to the present invention.
The example of FIG. 1 is a system for controlling various devices mounted on an automobile by voice recognition. This system includes a sound collecting microphone 10, a voice recognition device 12 that receives a signal collected by the sound collecting microphone 10 and converted, and whether the voice recognized by the voice recognition device 12 matches a predetermined voice. Registration / authentication unit 14 for determining whether or not, and registration / authentication unit 1
The control unit 16 controls the various controlled objects 18 and 20 according to the result of the authentication.

Various objects such as automobile engine, wiper, washer, lighting, navigation system, and air conditioner can be used as the control objects 18 and 20, but here, for convenience, the control object 18 is a wiper. The controlled object 20 is assumed to be an engine. It should be noted that these control targets 18 and 20 do not simply control ON / OFF, but a wiper includes control such as low, high, intermittent operation, and intermittent interval thereof, and may be engine control. For example, it includes selection of power mode and economy mode. As for these control targets, their control contents, control methods, etc., those described in the above-mentioned JP-A-10-73448 can be used. The sound collecting microphone 10 picks up the voice uttered by the user 22, converts the voice into an electric signal, and sends the electric signal to the voice recognition device 12.

The voice recognition device 12 is well known in the art and includes a CPU (central processing unit), a memory, an interface, etc., and analyzes the voice converted into an electric signal by the sound collecting microphone 10 and outputs it as a character. That is, it is recognized as code data. If it cannot be recognized, the user can be prompted to speak again through a speaker (not shown). The registration / authentication unit 14 has a password (indicated as PW in the drawing) set in advance by the automobile manufacturer.
In addition, various terms indicating control items and control contents are registered. That is, the registration / authentication unit 14 also has a CPU and a memory,
A predetermined authentication / judgment work is performed on the voice recognized by the voice recognition device 12 including an interface. In addition, the registration / authentication unit 14 has a function of requesting the user to set a user setting password if the user setting password is not registered as an initial setting and causing the user to set / register a password unique to the user. is doing.
Although the user-set password is stored in a predetermined memory, the backup power supply may be exhausted and the password may be lost about 30 minutes after the battery of the vehicle is removed. On the other hand, since the password previously set by the automobile manufacturer is stored in the ROM or the like, it never disappears regardless of the presence or absence of the power supply.

Now, as an example, it is assumed that the vehicle model name of the automobile is registered as a password previously set by the automobile manufacturer. Here, the model name is "AB
C ". This is password 2 in the embodiment. On the other hand, it is assumed that the user, that is, the owner or driver of the automobile usually sets a unique password, that is, “open sesame” as the password 1. The flowchart shown in FIG. 2 shows operations executed by the CPU of the registration / authentication unit 14. That is, it is determined in step S1 whether or not the user setting password has already been registered, and if not registered, the user is prompted to set the password in step S2.

On the other hand, if registered, step S
3, it is determined whether or not there is an input voice, that is, a voice recognized by the voice recognition device 12, and if there is, a step S4.
Determines whether the input voice matches the password 1. If they match, a voice recognition mode for engine control operation is executed in step S5. On the other hand, step S
If they do not match in step 4, it is determined in step S6 whether the input voice matches the password 2. If they match, a voice recognition mode for control operation of equipment other than the engine is executed in step S7. On the other hand, if they do not match in step S6, the process returns to step S1.

FIG. 3 is a flow chart showing the contents of step S7 in the flow chart of FIG. When the voice recognition mode for the control operation of equipment other than the engine is started, the timer is initialized in step S11 and the time T of the software timer is reset to zero. Next, in step S12, it is determined whether the recognized speech content of the user matches the word in the menu. If they match, the corresponding step among the plurality of operation steps shown as step S15 is executed. That is, step S
If, for example, "int 1" is recognized at 12, the wiper is intermittently operated at a predetermined interval.

On the other hand, when there is no matching word in step S12, the process goes to step S13, and it is judged whether or not a time-out has occurred, that is, whether or not the elapsed time T measured by the timer matches a predetermined value. . If it matches the predetermined elapsed time, the process returns and returns to step S1.
On the other hand, if it does not match the predetermined time, step S1
The elapsed time T of the timer is incremented by 4 (T ← T +
1) and returns to step S12. This step S1
By providing S3 and S14, when the input voice does not match the predetermined word in the menu, the next collation operation can be started at a predetermined time interval.

FIG. 4 is a diagram schematically showing a state transition of device control by voice recognition according to the embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 4, when the voice recognition operation starts, the contents of the device control thereafter differ depending on whether the recognized password is password 1 or password 2. Figure 4
Then, when the password 1 is recognized, the control unit 1 in FIG.
The wiper controller 16A in 6 can be controlled, and when the password 2 is recognized, the engine controller 16B in the control unit 16 in FIG. 1 can be controlled.

As described above, according to the present invention, a device that performs authentication with a password defined by the device provider side in advance and a device that performs authentication with a password registered by the user are defined in advance, and the user In order to register the password, the user is prompted to register the password, and then the user recognizes the voice to determine whether the password is registered by the user. When the user utters a voice and it is determined that the password is registered, the device that performs authentication is controlled by the password registered by the user, so at least the control of the operation of important devices is illegally or illegally performed. It is possible to effectively prevent this from happening, thus ensuring safety.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a preferred embodiment of a voice recognition device according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing an operation of a CPU that constitutes a registration / authentication unit in FIG.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the contents of a voice recognition mode for control operation of equipment other than the engine in FIG.

FIG. 4 is a diagram schematically showing a state transition of device control by voice recognition according to the embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

10 Sound collecting microphone 12 Speech recognition device 14 Registration / Authentication Department 16 Control unit 16A wiper controller 16B engine controller 18 wiper 20 engine 22 users

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Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. A step of voice-recognizing a password uttered as voice, an authentication step of determining whether or not the voice-recognized password matches a pre-registered password, and a step of matching by the authentication step. In the device control method by voice recognition that controls the operation of a predetermined device when it is authenticated, the device that authenticates with the password specified by the device provider side and the password registered by the user A device for performing authentication is defined in advance, and in order for the user to register the password, a step of registering the password by uttering the password to the user, and after the step of registering, recognizing voice and uttering by the user In the step of determining whether the password is registered by When it is determined that the recognized voice is a password registered by the user uttering, controlling the device that performs authentication with the password registered by the user, the voice recognition. Equipment control method. 2. A step of recognizing the voice and determining whether or not the password is registered by vocalizing by the user,
There is a step of recognizing a password registered by the user uttered and a password set in advance by the device provider side, and in the determining step, the recognized voice is set in advance by the device provider side. Controlling the device that authenticates with the password determined in advance by the provider side of the device when the password is determined to be the password. Method. 3. The device control method by voice recognition according to claim 1, wherein the device that authenticates with the password registered by the user is a motor of a vehicle. 4. A voice recognition means for recognizing a password uttered as a voice, an authentication means for judging whether or not the voice-recognized password matches a pre-registered password, and the authentication means. In a device control device by voice recognition that controls the operation of a predetermined device when it is authenticated as a match, a device that authenticates with a password previously set by the device provider side and the user registered A device for performing authentication by a password is predetermined, and in order for the user to register the password, a password registration means for uttering the password by the user and registering the password, and after the password is registered by uttering the user,
Judgment means for recognizing voice and judging whether or not the password is registered by uttered by the user, and the voice recognized by the judgment means is judged as a password registered by uttered by the user In this case, the device control apparatus by voice recognition, comprising: a control unit that controls a device that authenticates with the password registered by the user. 5. The judging means has a recognizing means for recognizing a password registered by the user uttered and a password defined by the provider side of the device in advance, and the voice recognized by the judging means. When it is determined that the password is a password defined by the supplier side of the device in advance, the device further comprises control means for controlling the device to be authenticated by the password defined by the supplier side of the device. 4. A device control device by voice recognition according to item 4. 6. The device control apparatus by voice recognition according to claim 4, wherein the device that authenticates with the password registered by the user is a motor of a vehicle.