JP2008085838A - Conversion system for automatic communication medium - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a conversion system for automatic communication medium, with which a communication medium to be used for call termination can be selected independently of the communication medium that is selected by a calling-side user. <P>SOLUTION: The conversion system for automatic communication medium comprises a presence management means which manages the presence information, containing a call termination session policy that indicates a call termination medium desired for each location information item, together with location information and terminal function information, according to each user within a service area; a call termination medium determining means which refers to the presence information corresponding to a designated incoming-call side user, in response to a connection request and determines a communication medium to be selected at the incoming side from the location information and the call termination session policy of the incoming-call side user; and a medium conversion means which performs medium conversion between both communication medium, when an incoming-call side communication medium indicated by the connection request does not match the communication medium determined by the call termination medium determining means. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2008,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a communication media automatic conversion system based on media information included in session information exchanged when a session is established by the SIP protocol or by an established session.

In a negotiation session when establishing a session according to the SIP protocol, media information indicating a desired communication medium is transmitted as a part of SDP (Session Describe Protocol) information from a terminal device on the calling side, and a designated communication medium (for example, It is first determined whether or not a voice call can be provided at the terminal device on the receiving side.
After that, the user on the receiving side is notified that communication with the specified communication media is required, and the user on the receiving side acknowledges the incoming call on the communication media described above and responds. A session for exchanging data of communication media is established, and exchange of an RTP packet for, for example, a voice call is started via this session.

In recent years, functions of individual communication terminals have been enhanced, and for example, a communication terminal having both a function of connecting to a third generation mobile communication system and a function of connecting to a wireless LAN system according to the SIP protocol has been realized. Has been.
For example, when such a mobile communication terminal enters an area where both the mobile communication network and the wireless LAN can be used, the technology for controlling the transition of connection from the mobile communication network to the wireless LAN or vice versa. A handover control technique using position information of a mobile communication terminal has been proposed (see Patent Document 1).

In such a handover control technology, a handover is performed based on the type of communication media that a user who is currently connected using multiple media prefers, the type of communication media that can be provided in a network that can be handed over, and the like. Control is performed such as determining whether or not to perform or determining a medium to be selected in communication after handover.
JP 2005-229583 A

In the conventional network technology including the technology of Patent Document 1 described above, the session is established on the assumption that the calling side and the called side communicate with the same communication medium.
In a wireless LAN system to which the SIP protocol is applied, communication with a wide variety of communication media is possible, and even though terminal devices having various functions are connected in a mixed manner, use on the calling side is possible. Only the communication media specified by the SDP information added to the INVITE message sent by the user can be determined by the terminal device on the receiving side, and the use of the receiving side only when it can be provided The connection request is notified to the user.

In such a conventional session establishment procedure, the selection of communication media is unilaterally left to the caller side, and if the desired communication media is not designated, the user on the callee side makes a connection request. Communication media could only be selected by not responding.
For this reason, if the communication media desired by the calling user and the communication media desired by the receiving user do not match, the connection request is rejected and communication cannot be started. It was.

In addition, for example, it is possible for the calling user to select the communication medium by imagining the convenience of the receiving user, but the communication medium selected based on the imagination of the calling user is It does not change that it does not necessarily match the communication medium desired by the user on the called side.
On the other hand, in office buildings, etc., technology that manages each employee's whereabouts (presence) by means of RFID, etc. possessed by each employee is applicable, and location information obtained by this presence management technology It is possible to improve the estimation accuracy by determining whether the receiving user is in a meeting or in the living room based on the result and estimating the desired communication media based on this result. is there.

However, it is possible that the communication media that the user wants to receive is different depending on the user or the situation in which the user is placed at the same location. There is no guarantee as to whether it can be provided by other terminals.
In this way, there is a limit to the method in which the user on the calling side selects the communication medium unilaterally and adopts the same communication medium on the calling side and the called side, and communication is established due to a mismatch of the communication media. Not a few cases occur. In the future, as the choices regarding communication media that can be provided by individual terminal devices increase, the number of cases in which communication is not established due to such a mismatch of communication media is expected to increase.

  It is an object of the present invention to provide an automatic communication media conversion system that can select a communication medium used for an incoming call independently of a communication medium selected by a user on the outgoing side, reflecting the policy of the user on the incoming side. Objective.

A first communication media automatic conversion system according to the present invention includes presence management means, incoming media determination means, and media conversion means.
The principle of the first communication media automatic conversion system according to the present invention is as follows.
The presence management means manages presence information including an incoming session policy indicating a desired incoming medium for each location information, together with location information and terminal function information, corresponding to each user in the service area. The incoming media determination means refers to the presence information corresponding to the specified destination user in response to the connection request, and selects the destination side from the location information of the destination user and the incoming session policy. Determine communication media. The media conversion means performs media conversion between both communication media when the communication media on the calling side indicated by the connection request does not match the communication media determined by the incoming media determination means.

The operation of the first communication media automatic conversion system configured as described above is as follows.
For example, when an SIP protocol INVITE message arrives at the communication media conversion system, presence information registered in the presence management means corresponding to the destination user indicated by the INVITE message by the incoming media determination means. Is referenced. At this time, the incoming media determination means uses the incoming side on the basis of the location information of the destination user and the incoming session policy independently of the communication media specified by the SDP information included in the above-mentioned INVITE message. The communication media that the user uses for communication is determined.

When the communication medium on the called side determined in this way does not match the communication medium on the calling side specified by the INVITE message, the media conversion means performs media conversion between the two communication media.
Thus, for example, when the communication medium selected on the caller side is voice communication and the text information is selected as the communication medium on the callee side, the communication medium selected on the caller side and the communication desired by the callee side are selected. Even when the media does not match, communication between both terminals can be realized. In the above-described example, the voice data that has reached the media conversion means via the RTP session set up with the terminal device on the caller side is converted into text information and sent to the terminal device on the callee side. The text information sent from the terminal device on the side is converted into voice data by the media conversion means and sent to the terminal device on the sending side via the RTP session described above.

A second communication media automatic conversion system according to the present invention includes a speech recognition unit, a message generation unit, a SIP communication unit, and a text extraction unit as media conversion units included in the second communication media automatic conversion system described above. And voice synthesis means.
The principle of the second automatic communication media conversion system according to the present invention is as follows.
In the media conversion means provided in the first communication media automatic conversion system described above, the voice recognition means is for voice data input via an RTP session set with a terminal device that has selected voice as the communication media. A speech recognition process is performed to generate text information indicating language information represented by the speech data. The message generation unit generates a SIP message including text information obtained by the voice recognition unit. The SIP communication means exchanges SIP messages with a terminal device that has selected text information as a communication medium. The text extraction means extracts the text information from the SIP message received from the terminal device that has selected the text information as the communication medium. The voice synthesis unit performs voice synthesis processing on the text information extracted by the text extraction unit, generates voice data representing the language information indicated by the text information, and outputs voice as the communication medium through the RTP session. Send to selected terminal device.

The operation of the second communication media automatic conversion system configured as described above is as follows.
The voice data received via the RTP session from the terminal device A that has selected voice communication is converted into text information by the voice recognition means, and further converted into a SIP message including this text information, and then sent via the SIP communication means. , And transmitted to the opposite terminal device B that has selected communication by text information. On the other hand, the text information included in the SIP message from the terminal device B is extracted by the text extracting unit, converted into an RTP packet including voice data by the speech synthesizing unit, and set between the terminal device A and the terminal device A described above. Sent via the RTP session.

In this way, voice-to-text media conversion as well as text-to-voice media conversion is realized in the SIP protocol.
A third communication media automatic conversion system according to the present invention comprises a media conversion means provided in the above-described second communication media automatic conversion system, further comprising a determination means and a request proxy means.

The principle of the third automatic communication media conversion system according to the present invention is as follows.
In the media conversion means provided in the second communication media automatic conversion system described above, the determination means responds to the reception of the SIP message in which the text information is added to the body part, and the terminal on the called side indicated by the SIP message. It is determined whether an RTP session corresponding to the device is set. When it is determined that the RTP session corresponding to the receiving terminal device is not set, the request proxy means sends a connection request according to the SIP protocol to the receiving terminal device.

The operation of the third communication media automatic conversion system configured as described above is as follows.
When communication by text information is selected by the user on the transmission side, when the SIP message including the text information is newly sent to the opposite terminal device, the above-mentioned destination terminal device is determined by the determining means. In response to this, the request proxy means generates an INVITE message and sends it to the terminal device that is the destination of the SIP message. Session settings are made.

  Thereafter, the text information added to the SIP message from the terminal device on the calling side is converted into voice data by the media conversion means, and is transmitted to the terminal device on the receiving side via the RTP session set as described above. On the other hand, the voice data from the terminal device on the incoming side is converted into text information by the media conversion means and passed to the terminal device on the outgoing side.

According to the first communication media conversion system described above, the terminal device on the transmission side and the terminal device on the reception side can establish communication with each other while using the communication media selected independently.
In particular, according to the second and third communication media conversion systems, it is possible to provide a specific system for realizing conversion between communication media having completely different properties such as voice communication and text information communication. .

  In this way, conversion between different communication media is realized, satisfying both the user's wishes on the calling side and the users on the receiving side, and establishing communication with each other, It is possible to prevent communication failure due to mismatch.

Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.
FIG. 1 shows an embodiment of a communication media automatic conversion system according to the present invention.
In the presence management server 220 shown in FIG. 1, the location information registration processing unit 221 collects location information about each terminal device via the network and updates the location information in the presence management table 222, and these terminal devices. In response to a request from, an incoming policy registration process is performed.

  The presence management table 222 shown in FIG. 1, for example, as shown in FIG. 2, holds location information corresponding to the user ID given to each user, and as information about the terminal device currently in use. It holds the terminal ID, telephone number, IP address and available media. The presence management table 222 includes information indicating a desired medium to be selected when an incoming call is received corresponding to the type of location (shown as the location type in FIG. 2) as an incoming policy corresponding to each user. Is registered.

In the SIP server 210 shown in FIG. 1, the inquiry processing unit 212 makes an inquiry regarding the destination user to the registration information search unit 223 of the presence server 220 in response to an instruction from the SIP processing unit 211. The obtained information is passed to the media conversion control unit 213.
The media conversion control unit 213 determines the necessity of media conversion based on the information extracted from the connection request by the SIP processing unit 211 and the information obtained from the above inquiry, and indicates that media conversion is necessary. When the determination result is obtained, the session media conversion server 230 is requested to perform media conversion processing via the SIP processing unit 211 as described later.

  In the session media conversion server 230 shown in FIG. 1, the RTP control unit 232 exchanges RTP packets via an RTP session set via the network in response to an instruction from the SIP processing unit 231. At this time, the RTP control unit 232 uses the speech data received via the RTP session for conversion processing into text information by the speech recognition processing unit 233, while the speech data received from the speech synthesis processing unit 234 is used as an RTP packet. Send out via the RTP session described above. Further, the message conversion unit 235 shown in FIG. 1 receives the text information obtained by the voice recognition processing unit 233 in the body part of the SIP message and passes it to the SIP processing unit 231, and received from the SIP processing unit 231. It has a function of extracting text information included in the SIP message and providing it to a voice data conversion process by the voice synthesis processing unit 234.

Hereinafter, the operation of the communication media automatic conversion system illustrated in FIG. 1 will be described by taking as an example a case of connecting to the terminal device UE1 used by a user in the conference room in response to a connection request from the terminal device UE2.
For example, as shown in FIG. 3, when an INVITE related to a voice call from the terminal device UE2 is detected by the SIP server 210 (step 301 in FIG. 4), first, the SIP processing unit 211 indicates the INVITE SDP. Information indicating the destination is extracted together with the transmission side media information (voice) (steps 302 and 303 in FIG. 4).

  Based on the destination terminal information extracted as described above, the inquiry processing unit 212 shown in FIG. 1 makes an inquiry about the incoming user's incoming policy to the presence management server 220. The registered information search unit 223 refers to information indicating the desired medium (text) to be received corresponding to the location information of the user, together with information on the terminal device being used by the specified receiving user. (Step 304 in FIG. 4), and the information is notified to the media conversion control unit 213 shown in FIG.

  At this time, the media conversion control unit 213 compares the calling-side media information extracted by the SIP processing unit 211 with the called-side media information notified from the presence management server 220 via the inquiry processing unit 212, and they match. If so (normal determination at step 305), normal session setting processing similar to the conventional one is performed (step 306), and the session setting operation in response to the connection request is terminated.

On the other hand, as shown in FIG. 3, when the media (voice) desired by the caller does not match the media (text) desired by the callee (determination at step 305), the media conversion control unit 213 The session setting is performed via the session media conversion server 230 via the SIP processing unit 211.
At this time, in response to an instruction from the media conversion control unit 213, the SIP processing unit 211 transfers the above INVITE from the terminal device UE2 to the session media conversion server 230. In response to this, the SIP processing unit 231 instructs the RTP control unit 232 to set the RTP session connected to the terminal device UE2 on the caller side, and the RTP session set in the RTP control unit 232 in response thereto. Information about the request is notified to the requesting terminal device UE2 via the SIP processing unit 231 of the session media conversion server 230 and the SIP processing unit 211 of the SIP server 210.

  In this way, an RTP session connecting the terminal device UE2 on the transmission side and the RTP control unit 232 of the session media conversion server 230 is established (see FIG. 3), as indicated by a thick gray line in FIG. At this time, the SIP processing unit 231 manages the RTP session and the information indicating the above-described transmission-side terminal device UE2 and reception-side terminal device UE1 in association with each other.

When the RTP packet arrives at the RTP control unit 232 from the terminal device UE2 on the transmission side via the RTP session (see step 311 in FIG. 5), the voice data included in the RTP packet is converted into the voice recognition process shown in FIG. It is used for voice recognition processing by the unit 233 (step 312 in FIG. 5) and converted into text information (see FIG. 3).
Upon receiving the text information obtained in this way, the message conversion unit 235 shown in FIG. 1 adds this text information to the body part to form a SIP message (step 313 in FIG. 5), and the SIP processing unit. It transmits via H.231 (step 314).

As described above, since the RTP session and the receiving terminal device UE1 are managed in association with each other in the SIP processing unit 231, the SIP message including the text information formed as described above is sent to the SIP server 210. Via the terminal device UE1 described above (see FIG. 3).
In this way, the voice data from the terminal apparatus UE2 desiring voice communication as the communication medium is converted into text information, and the terminal apparatus desiring text information as the communication medium as an SIP message including this text information. Can be passed to UE1.

On the other hand, as shown in FIG. 3, when text information is input as a response to the above-described SIP message by the user of the terminal apparatus UE1, the SIP message including the text information is transmitted via the SIP server 210 to the session media. The data is transferred to the conversion server 230 (step 321 in FIG. 5) and transferred from the SIP processing unit 231 to the message conversion unit 235.
The text information included in the SIP message is extracted by the message conversion unit 235 (step 322 in FIG. 5), and then passed to the speech synthesis processing unit 234, where it is converted into speech data. (Step 323 in FIG. 5). Then, the RTP control unit 232 forms an RTP packet including the voice data, and transmits the RTP packet to the terminal device UE2 via the RTP session described above (see step 324 in FIGS. 3 and 5).

In this way, the text information from the terminal device UE1 can be converted into voice data and passed to the terminal device UE2 via the RTP session.
In the communication media automatic conversion system described above, the session media conversion server 230 terminates the exchange of RTP packets by the RTP session required for communication media such as voice calls, and the session media conversion server 230 uses the RTP session for communication. By providing means for converting between media and communication media such as text information, communication can be established by selecting the communication media independently on the caller side and the callee side.

Further, as described above, in the configuration in which the text information obtained from the voice data is set in the body part of the SIP message and transmitted to the destination terminal device, the text information is exchanged by exchanging the message according to the SIP protocol. This can be realized by using a simple configuration using a chat function or the like.
Next, an operation for realizing communication with the terminal device UE2 that desires a voice call in response to a connection request from the terminal device UE1 that desires communication using text information will be described.

FIG. 6 is a sequence diagram showing the operation of the communication media automatic conversion system. FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing the SIP message transfer operation.
Of the sequences shown in FIG. 6, those equivalent to the sequences shown in FIG. 3 are denoted by the reference numerals shown in FIG. 3, and description thereof is omitted.
For example, as shown in FIG. 6, when a SIP message designating the terminal device UE2 as a destination is transmitted from the terminal device UE1, the SIP server 210 receives a terminal of the destination based on the SDP information included in the SIP message. An inquiry about the device UE2 is made to the presence management server 220.

For example, when the location information registered in the presence management table 222 indicates that the user of the terminal device UE2 is at the destination, the registration information search unit 223 responds to the above inquiry to the terminal device UE2. It is notified that the corresponding desired media is audio.
Accordingly, the media conversion control unit 213 of the SIP server 210 determines that the media conversion processing is necessary, and the SIP message from the terminal device UE1 is transferred to the session media conversion server 230.

  At this time, as shown in FIG. 7, the SIP processing unit 231 of the session media conversion server 230 first extracts SDP information from the received SIP message (step 331), and then the RTP control unit 232 shown in FIG. The RTP session corresponding to the called terminal device (for example, the terminal device UE2) indicated by the SDP information is searched from the RTP sessions already set by the SDP information, and whether there is a corresponding RTP session based on the search result It is determined whether or not (step 333).

  When the above RTP session search is performed in response to the first SIP message shown in FIG. 6, since the corresponding RTP session is not yet set, the negative determination in step 333 described above is made. The SIP processing unit 231 creates INVITE including the SDP information collected from the RTP control unit 232, and sends the INVITE to the terminal device UE2 via the SIP server 210 (see step 334 and FIG. 6 in FIG. 7).

  Thereafter, the SIP processing unit 231 waits for reception of a response returned from the terminal device UE2 on the receiving side with respect to the above-mentioned INVITE (step 335), and when the response is received (affirmative determination in step 335), is included in the response SDP information is notified to the RTP control unit 232 to establish a session with the terminal device UE2, and this RTP session is registered in association with the terminal device UE2 on the receiving side (step 336).

After a new RTP session is set in this way, the SIP processing unit 231 passes the SIP message received from the SIP server 210 to the message conversion unit 235 (step 337), and the text shown in FIG. It is used for conversion processing from information to audio data.
On the other hand, when a new SIP message is received after the RTP session is set as described above, an existing RTP session is searched for the receiving terminal device indicated by the extracted SDP information. In step 333, an affirmative determination is made, and the new SIP message is used as it is by the message conversion unit 235.

  In addition to the speech recognition processing unit 233 and the speech synthesis processing unit 234 shown in FIG. 1, for example, by configuring the session media conversion server 230 with a configuration for converting text information into a set of sign language images. Communication between a user who desires a voice call and a user who desires a sign language call can be established as one of the services of the communication system. Similarly, by configuring the session media conversion server 230 with a configuration for converting another type of communication media into another type of communication media, communication media that meet a wide variety of requests from various users. It is possible to construct an automatic conversion system.

As described above, according to the communication media automatic conversion system according to the present invention, regardless of the communication media designated by the calling terminal device, the receiving terminal device establishes communication with the media desired to be used. As a result, it is possible to reliably prevent failure of communication itself due to mismatch of communication media.
As a result, the user of the next generation network system using the SIP protocol enjoys free communication regardless of the type of communication media that can be provided by the opposite terminal device or the location of the opposite user. Therefore, serviceability for users can be greatly improved.

It is a figure which shows embodiment of the communication media automatic conversion system concerning this invention. It is a figure which shows the example of a presence management table. It is a sequence diagram showing operation | movement of a communication media automatic conversion system. It is a flowchart showing session setting operation | movement. It is a flowchart showing media conversion operation. It is a sequence diagram showing operation | movement of a communication media automatic conversion system. It is a flowchart showing transfer operation | movement of a SIP message.

Explanation of symbols

210 SIP servers 211 and 231 SIP processing unit 212 Inquiry processing unit 213 Media conversion control unit 220 Presence management server 221 Location information registration processing unit 222 Presence management table 223 Registration information search unit 230 Session media conversion server 232 RTP control unit 233 Voice recognition processing Unit 234 speech synthesis processing unit 235 message conversion unit

Claims (3)

Corresponding to each user in the service area, presence management means for managing presence information including an incoming session policy indicating a desired incoming medium for each location information together with location information and terminal function information;
In response to a connection request, referring to the presence information corresponding to a specified destination user, an incoming call for determining a communication medium to be selected on the called side from the location information of the destination user and an incoming session policy Media decision means;
Media conversion means for performing media conversion between the two communication media when the communication media on the calling side indicated by the connection request and the communication media determined by the incoming media determination means do not match. Communication media automatic conversion system. In the communication media automatic conversion system according to claim 1,
The media conversion means includes
Speech that performs speech recognition processing on speech data input via an RTP session set with a terminal device that has selected speech as a communication medium, and generates text information indicating language information represented by the speech data Recognition means;
Message generating means for generating a SIP message including text information obtained by the voice recognition means;
SIP communication means for exchanging SIP messages with a terminal device that has selected text information as a communication medium;
Text extraction means for extracting text information from a SIP message received from a terminal device that has selected text information as the communication medium;
A terminal device that performs speech synthesis processing on the text information extracted by the text extraction unit, generates speech data representing language information indicated by the text information, and selects speech as the communication medium via the RTP session A communication media automatic conversion system characterized by comprising a voice synthesis means for sending to a network. In the communication media automatic conversion system according to claim 2,
The media conversion means includes
Determining means for determining whether an RTP session corresponding to the terminal device on the called side indicated by the SIP message is set in response to the reception of the SIP message in which the text information is added to the body part;
Communication means comprising request proxy means for sending a connection request in accordance with a SIP protocol to the terminal device on the receiving side when it is determined that an RTP session corresponding to the terminal device on the receiving side is not set up Automatic media conversion system.

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