JP2014170134A - Outdoor environmental sound transmitting device, and outdoor environmental sound transmitting system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an outdoor environmental sound transmitting device for transmitting a sound message that is easy to hear for local residents outdoors.SOLUTION: An outdoor environmental sound transmitting device 100 for transmitting a sound message for disaster prevention to one or more branch stations 200 laid in an area comprises: sound message obtaining means for obtaining the sound message; message division means 33 for dividing the sound message into meaningful symbol strings or obtaining the sound message divided into the meaningful symbol strings; symbol string difficulty level determination means 34 for determining a difficulty level in people's understanding of meaning of the symbol strings for each of the symbol strings; message creating means 36 for converting a high difficulty level symbol string determined, by the symbol string difficulty level determination means, to have a difficulty level of threshold or more, into a synonym having a difficulty level less than the threshold, to create a post-conversion message; and message transmission means 17 for transmitting the post-conversion message to the branch stations.

Description

  The present invention relates to an outdoor environment voice transmission device that transmits a voice message for disaster prevention to one or more slave stations laid in an area.

  Various disasters are caused by natural phenomena and human factors. Governments and local organizations monitor the occurrence of disasters that could affect human lives, and appropriately evacuate local residents when disasters occur. Occurrence of disasters and evacuation requests are transmitted to local residents through television broadcasting, radio broadcasting, mobile communication, outdoor loudspeakers, and the like (see, for example, Patent Document 1).

  There may be a case where a voice message that conveys the contents of a disaster that occurred or the evacuation destination is accompanied as information to be transmitted. For example, in the earthquake bulletin, the voice message “Meteorological Agency emergency earthquake bulletin. Earthquake has occurred. Please ensure your safety.” The tsunami warning says “Tsunami damage will occur. A voice message saying “People along the river should evacuate to safe places such as hills and evacuation buildings immediately.” Is transmitted, and the tsunami warning says, “The sea and the coast are dangerous. People in the sea. You should get up from the sea and leave the coast immediately. " Local residents can quickly take appropriate actions by grasping the contents of voice messages.

  However, there is a problem that the voice message by the outdoor loudspeaker, which is one of the transmission methods, may not be heard by the local resident depending on the local resident environment. For example, when a local resident stays indoors and does not watch TV, the voice message is blocked, and the local resident cannot grasp the content of the voice message. For local residents in such a situation, a technique for supplementing the transmission of voice messages by an outdoor loudspeaker has been conventionally devised (see, for example, Patent Document 2). Patent Document 2 discloses a disaster prevention alarm linkage system in which a home guard installed in a house communicates with a master unit to notify an inhabitant in the house of an earthquake early warning or the like.

JP 2001-273455 A JP 2013-029944 A

  However, even when the local residents are outdoors, there is a problem that the local residents may not be able to hear the voice message because a loud sound different from the usual conversation is transmitted. In addition, there is a problem that local residents may not be able to listen to voice messages in areas where the response is large or where there is a lot of noise.

  In view of the above problems, an object of the present invention is to provide an outdoor environment audio transmission device that transmits an audio message that can be easily heard by an outdoor local resident.

  The present invention is an outdoor environment voice transmission device that transmits a voice message for disaster prevention to one or more slave stations laid in an area, the voice message acquisition means for acquiring the voice message, and the voice message acquisition means Dividing the voice message acquired by the message into meaningful symbol strings or requesting the outside to divide the voice message into the symbol strings, and for each symbol string divided by the message dividing means In addition, symbol string difficulty determining means for determining the difficulty level when a person understands the meaning, and a high difficulty symbol string determined by the symbol string difficulty determining means to have a difficulty level equal to or higher than a threshold, Message creation means for creating a converted message by replacing with a synonym less than a threshold, and message transmission means for sending the converted message to a slave station And wherein the door.

  It is possible to provide an outdoor environment audio transmission device that transmits an audio message that can be easily heard by local residents outside.

It is an example of the figure explaining schematic operation | movement of the disaster prevention radio | wireless system of this embodiment. It is a figure which shows the structural example of the whole mechanism of a disaster prevention radio | wireless. It is an example of the block diagram of the disaster prevention radio system arrange | positioned at a local public entity. It is an example of the hardware block diagram of a speech converter. It is an example of the functional block diagram of a voice converter. It is a figure which shows an example of the word database classified by difficulty and a synonym database classified by difficulty. It is another example of the functional block diagram of a speech converter. It is an example of the flowchart figure which shows the operation | movement procedure of a speech converter. (Example 2) which is an example of the figure explaining schematic operation | movement of a disaster prevention radio | wireless system. It is an example of the block diagram of a disaster prevention radio system (Example 2). It is an example of the flowchart figure which shows the operation | movement procedure of a control part (Example 2). (Example 3) which is an example of the figure explaining schematic operation | movement of a disaster prevention radio | wireless system. It is a figure which shows the experimental result of the speech intelligibility test by echo. It is an example of the block diagram of a disaster prevention radio system (Example 3). It is an example of the figure explaining the observation result of the echo in a sub_station | mobile_unit. FIG. 10 is an example of a flowchart illustrating an operation procedure of a control unit (third embodiment).

  Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. However, the technical scope of the present invention is not limited to this embodiment.

  FIG. 1 is an example of a diagram illustrating a schematic operation of the disaster prevention radio system according to the present embodiment. The local government has a disaster prevention radio system 100 (which is an example of an outdoor environment audio transmission device in the scope of claims), and the disaster prevention radio system 100 and the slave station 200 can communicate with each other mainly by radio communication. Maintained.

When a disaster occurs, the disaster prevention radio system 100 creates a voice message by selecting a voice message according to the content of the disaster that occurred or editing a template. This voice message is referred to as an original message. One feature of the disaster prevention wireless system 100 according to the present embodiment is that the original message is converted into a voice message that can be easily heard by humans.
(i) A disaster occurred and an original message “Please evacuate to the hill” was prepared.
(ii) The voice conversion device 30 detects a difficult word from the original message. Difficult words are words or phrases that are difficult for humans to hear. Here, it is assumed that the difficult words “high ground” and “evacuate” are detected.
(iii) The voice conversion device 30 replaces the detected difficult word with a non-difficult word having the same meaning. For example, it is assumed that “high place” can be acquired as an easy word of the same meaning as “high ground” and “escape” can be acquired as an easy word of the same meaning as “evacuation”. The voice conversion device 30 converts “high ground” and “evacuation” as follows.
"High ground" → "High place"
"Evacuate" → "Escape"
(iv) The voice conversion device 30 creates a post-conversion message in which the difficult word of the original message is replaced with a non-easy word. Therefore, the message after conversion is "Please escape to a high place".
(v) When the disaster prevention radio system 100 transmits the converted message to the slave station 200, the slave station 200 amplifies a voice message “Please escape to a high place” from the speaker 53.

  Therefore, local residents can perceive a voice message that is easy to hear even when outdoors, and the contents of the voice message can be read even if the surrounding noise is high or the echo is caused by echo. You can grasp and take appropriate action promptly.

  Note that the language of the voice message need not be Japanese, and the disaster prevention wireless system 100 of the present embodiment can be applied without depending on the language such as English, Chinese, or Korean.

  FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating a configuration example of the overall mechanism of the disaster prevention radio. Such a mechanism is called an outdoor environment audio transmission system or a disaster prevention radio system. The national government has established a system for transmitting information to the local governments, such as municipalities, on information that should be dealt with immediately, such as those obtained by the Japan Meteorological Agency or the Fire and Disaster Management Agency. National and local governments can communicate via the Internet and satellite communications. Information detected and transmitted by the Japan Meteorological Agency includes emergency earthquake warnings, tsunami warnings, tsunami warnings, eruption warnings, eruption forecasts, Tokai earthquake prediction information, seismic intensity warnings, weather information, landslide disaster warning information, tornado warning information, record There are short-term heavy rain information, designated river flood forecasts, national protection information such as terrorism and missiles. Hereinafter, these are referred to as “emergency information” without distinction.

  The local public entity has a receiving antenna 102 for receiving radio waves from the artificial satellite 101 and a communication device for connecting to the Internet (a network 24 described later), and can always receive emergency information without any human intervention. .

  The local government receives a voice message transmitted from the Japan Meteorological Agency, etc., or selects a voice message appropriate for the situation, and transmits it to the broadcast slave station 200 (the mobile slave station is also the same). Sent). The slave station 200 is systematically laid in the area so that local residents can perceive voice messages by hearing without omission.

  The local public entity has a telemeter 300 such as a river water level measuring instrument or a seismometer. The data transmitted from the telemeter 300 is discriminated based on its own standard, and the voice message is amplified from the slave station 200. It is also possible.

  FIG. 3 shows an example of a block diagram of a disaster prevention radio system arranged in a local public entity. The console 20 receives an operation when a user (a disaster prevention person in a local public organization) transmits a voice message, and controls the voice message transmitted via the master station communication device 21. Further, the console 20 receives emergency information or a voice message transmitted by the Japan Meteorological Agency or the like via the network 24, and transmits a voice message via the master station communication device 21 without any user operation.

  The console 20 includes a microphone 11, a display unit 12, an operation unit 13, a data storage unit 14, a control unit 15, and an input / output I / F 16, and the control unit 15 is connected to the master station communication device 21. It is connected.

  The control unit 15 is an information processing apparatus such as a microcomputer provided with a CPU, RAM, ROM, I / O, and the like. The control unit 15 controls the entire console 20 by an OS (Operating System) or a program executed by the CPU.

  The microphone 11 collects the voice uttered by the user and converts it into an electrical signal. The electric signal is encoded by the control unit 15 by a predetermined method and converted into an audio signal. The encoding method is not particularly specified, but there are 26.6 kbps, 6.4 kbps, and the like as standard code acceleration. The audio signal is stored in the data storage unit 14.

  The display unit 12 is a flat panel display such as a liquid crystal, and is preferably equipped with a touch panel. In addition to the operation menu, the display unit 12 displays a map captured from the outside, a video taken by the camera, and the like.

  The operation unit 13 is a hard key such as a keyboard, a soft key displayed on the touch panel, and a pointing device. The operation unit 13 accepts selection of a voice message transmitted from the slave station 200, for example.

  The data storage unit 14 is an HDD (Hard Disk Drive) or an SDD (Solid State Drive), and stores voice signals, text data of voice messages, programs, and the like.

  The input / output I / F 16 is an interface for communicating with peripheral devices, and is, for example, an Ethernet (registered trademark) card, a USB host, or the like. The input / output I / F 16 is connected to a FAX device 22, a voice synthesizer 23, a voice converter 30, and a network 24.

  The FAX apparatus 22 receives image data from the telephone line network or the network 24 and prints it, or transmits a text requested to be transmitted from the console 20 to a designated destination. The speech synthesizer 23 is a device that converts text data into speech. By converting the voice message of the emergency information requested from the console 20 into voice, the voice signal can be transmitted to the slave station 200 without the user reading out the voice message. The voice created by the voice synthesizer 23 is converted into a voice signal by the voice synthesizer 23 or the control unit 15 and recorded in the data storage unit 14.

  The voice conversion device 30 is an information processing device such as a PC (Personal Computer) or a microcomputer. Although the function of the voice conversion device 30 will be described later, the function of the voice conversion device 30 may be configured to be included in the control unit 15.

  The network 24 is mainly a LAN, but is connected to an IP communication network such as the Internet via the LAN. For this reason, information from outside such as J-ALERT (National Instantaneous Warning System) can be received.

  The control unit 15 wirelessly transmits the audio signal stored in the data storage unit 14 from the master station communication device 21. In the disaster prevention wireless system 100, a wireless communication standard (for example, a municipal digital broadcast communication system standard ARIB STD-T86) is defined. That is, the transmission unit 17 modulates a voice signal with π / 4 shift QPSK, and converts one frame into six time slots by a TDMA-TDD (Time Division Multiple Access-Time Division Duplex) method. To divide. Except for the control slot, audio signals can be stored in five slots. The modulated audio signal is transmitted from the antenna 25 with a carrier of 60 MHz, for example.

  In the same standard, the transmitter 17 of the master station communication device 21 instructs the slave station 200 to start reporting using the paging channel. A frame flowing in the paging channel includes a prefecture code and a user code (specifying a slave station), and the master station communication device 21 sets an arbitrary user code, whereby a slave station (or group of slave stations) 200 is set. Can be called individually.

  Note that this communication standard is only an example of a communication method determined by a local public body, and the like, even if the master station communication device 21 and the slave station 200 communicate with each other via a mobile phone network, a PHS network, a WiMAX network, a wireless LAN network, or the like. Good. Further, a communication network in which slave stations communicate with each other like ZigBee (registered trademark) may be constructed, and the slave station 200 and the master station communication device 21 may communicate with each other. Moreover, you may employ | adopt wired communication in one part area or all the areas instead of a radio | wireless.

  In addition, the slave station 200 receives a voice message from the master station communication device 21 and broadcasts it to the local residents. The slave station 200 includes a receiving unit 51, a control unit 52, a microphone 54, a speaker 53, and the like. In addition, although not shown, an operation unit, a display unit, and the like may be included. Further, only the slave station 200 can broadcast its own station such as a pseudo siren sound and a chime sound.

  The receiving unit 51 of the slave station 200 demodulates the carrier wave received by the antenna 55, extracts an audio signal, and outputs it to the control unit 52. The control unit 52 converts the audio signal into a voltage, amplifies it, and outputs it from the speaker 53. The microphone 54 collects sounds around the slave station 200. It is also possible to transmit this audio signal from the slave station 200 to the master station communication device 21.

[Voice converter]
FIG. 4 shows an example of a hardware configuration diagram of the audio conversion device 30. The audio conversion device 30 includes a CPU 301, a ROM 302, a RAM 303, an HDD 304, a graphic board 305 to which a display 320 is connected, a keyboard / mouse 306, a media drive 307, and a network communication unit 308 connected to a bus. The CPU 301 expands and executes the program 310 stored in the HDD 304 in the RAM 303, and controls each component to perform input / output and process data. The ROM 302 stores a BIOS and a start program for reading the bootstrap loader from the HDD 304 to the RAM 303. The bootstrap loader reads the OS from the HDD 304 to the RAM 303.

  The HDD 304 may be an SSD (Solid State Drive) or the like as long as it is a non-volatile memory. The HDD 304 stores an OS, a device driver, and a program 310 that provides functions to be described later. The OS includes Windows (registered trademark), LINUX (registered trademark), UNIX (registered trademark), and the like. The display 320 displays a GUI screen generated by the graphic board 305 as instructed by the program.

  A keyboard / mouse 306 is an input device that receives user operations. Note that the keyboard / mouse 306 and the display may not be provided when the user does not directly operate the audio conversion device 30.

  The media drive 307 reads and writes data to and from optical media such as compact discs, DVDs, and Blu-ray discs. Further, data may be read from and written to a memory card such as a flash memory.

  The network communication unit 308 is, for example, an Ethernet (registered trademark) card for connecting to a LAN. The OS and program 310 perform TCP / IP (UDP / IP) and application layer protocol processing. There are various application layer protocols, but they are compatible with general protocols (for example, SMB (Server Message Block), HTTP, FTP, SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol), etc.).

  The program 310 is a file in an installable or executable format, and is distributed by being recorded on a computer-readable recording medium. The program 310 is distributed in a file that can be installed or executed from a server (not shown).

  FIG. 5 shows an example of a functional block diagram of the voice conversion device 30. The audio signal stored in the data storage unit 14 of the console 20 is acquired by the audio signal acquisition unit 31 via the input / output I / F 16. Since the voice signal of the voice message uttered is acquired by the voice signal acquisition unit 31, the voice recognition unit 32 converts it into text data (for example, “Please evacuate to the hill”). For the speech recognition unit 32, publicly known software may be used. Generally, recognition processing is performed using an acoustic model and a language model, and converted into text data. Further, a voice signal may be transmitted via the network 24 and voice recognition may be performed using an external server (for example, a cloud service). The voice recognition unit 32 sends the text data to the word division unit 33.

  The word dividing unit 33 divides the text data into words. In a divided language such as English (a language in which sentences are divided for each word), it is divided into words when converted into text data. In a language such as Japanese that is not separated, it is divided into words as follows. As a simple method of dividing into words, Kana-Kanji conversion is effective for languages that can be converted to Kanji such as Japanese (Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, etc.). Kana-Kanji conversion can be performed by a general IME (Input Method Editor), and an external server can also be used.

  From the kana-kanji converted text data, the kanji to the next kanji are estimated as one word. For example, when Kana-Kanji conversion is performed and text data “Please evacuate to high ground” is obtained, “To high,” “Evacuate” and “Please” are the words. In terms of grammar, “ni”, “te”, “i”, etc. are also words (attached words), and strings such as “on the hill”, “evacuate”, “please” are “words (independent words) + attached” Word ". Therefore, the word in the present embodiment is not limited to a grammatical word, but may include a meaningful symbol string (which a person understands). Of course, numbers and alphabets may be included in addition to letters.

  It is also effective to perform morphological analysis as a method of dividing into words. Morphological analysis is a process of dividing a sentence written in a natural language into the smallest units having grammatical meaning. In Japanese morphological analysis, it can be divided up to the part of speech level. In the present embodiment, since it is not necessary to specify particles and adverbs of text data, for example, only morphemes to be converted such as nouns, pronouns, and verbs may be specified. In the text data “Please evacuate to the hill”, morphemes “Elevation” and “Evacuate” are extracted. The user can set the part of speech and usage to be extracted. Note that an external server can also be used for word division.

  The text data divided into words in this way is sent to the word difficulty level calculation unit 34. The word difficulty level calculation unit 34 refers to the difficulty level word database 38 and calculates the difficulty level of words included in the text data.

  FIG. 6A is a diagram schematically illustrating an example of the difficulty-based word database 38. The difficulty level is a level representing difficulty in listening to a word when a local resident senses it. In the figure, the difficulty level is expressed in five stages of 1 to 5, and the higher the numerical value, the higher the difficulty level.

  The difficulty level can be calculated from the familiarity and the appearance frequency. Intimacy is an index that expresses how familiar a word is. The familiarity is an average value when the degree of familiarity is answered by a number from 1 to 7 by listening to or showing each word to a plurality of people. The intimacy data is published in a dictionary (for example, “Japanese tatami characteristics”). The appearance frequency is a value obtained by calculating the appearance frequency for each word in newspapers, magazines, the Internet, etc., and publicly known data can be used.

  The familiarity or appearance frequency may be used as the difficulty level as it is, or the difficulty level may be calculated by weighting the familiarity or appearance frequency. Words with higher familiarity or higher appearance frequency are considered to be less difficult.

  The difficulty level word database 38 does not need to be included in the voice conversion device 30 and may be present on the network 24 accessible by the voice conversion device 30. In FIG. 6A, the difficulty level is shown in five levels, but may be five levels or more (for example, diversion of seven levels of intimacy), two levels of difficulty (low) or difficulty (high). The difficulty level of may be registered.

  Returning to FIG. 5, the word difficulty level calculation unit 34 attaches the difficulty level to each word and sends it to the difficulty level determination unit 35. For example, the three words “on the hill”, “evacuate” and “please” indicate the difficulty level in parentheses, such as “on the hill (4)” “evacuate (3)” and “please (2)” Attached.

  The difficulty level determination unit 35 compares the threshold value set in advance with the difficulty level, and causes the word conversion unit 36 to transmit words that are equal to or higher than the threshold value (hereinafter referred to as difficulty (high) words) to the word conversion unit 36. , Difficulty (low) words) are sent to the sentence composition unit 37. Here, as an example, the threshold value is “3”. Therefore, “to the hill (4)” and “evacuate (3)” are sent to the word conversion unit 36, and “please (2)” is sent to the sentence composition unit 37.

  Further, since the difficulty level is no longer necessary due to the determination of the difficulty level, the difficulty level determination unit 35 deletes the difficulty level. Further, in order to synthesize the text data into the original voice message later, the order of words is given. For example, “To hill” is first, “Evacuate” is second, and “Please” is third.

  The word conversion unit 36 refers to the difficulty level synonym database 39 to convert a word having a difficulty level (high) into a word having a low difficulty level.

  FIG. 6B schematically illustrates the synonym database classified by difficulty. A substitution word is associated with a word of difficulty (high). The replacement word is a word having a difficulty level lower than the threshold value of the difficulty level determination unit and having the same meaning. For example, the replacement word for “high ground” is “high place”, and the replacement word for “evacuation” is “escape”.

  In the present embodiment, the voice message of emergency information that is amplified by the disaster prevention radio is used as a main application example, so the words included in the voice message are limited. Therefore, it is possible to comprehensively list words and replacement words of difficulty (high) relatively easily. In addition, in consideration of the utilization form, it is also possible to register a replacement word corresponding to the difficulty level (high) in the difficulty level word database 38. For example, not only “evacuation” but also a substitution word “escape” is registered in the difficulty level (high) of “evacuation”. Thereby, when the difficulty level (high) is converted by the replacement word, a natural voice message can be easily created.

  In addition, it is preferable to prepare not only the difficulty level (low) and synonyms but also the shortest possible replacement words. “Short” means that the utterance time (mora length) is short. This is because a substitution word with a short utterance time can transmit a voice message of a disaster prevention radio system with high urgency in a short time. That is, at least one difficulty (high) word in the synonym database classified by difficulty is associated with a replacement word having a shorter mora length than the difficulty (high) word. Therefore, the disaster prevention wireless system of the present embodiment has an effect that not only the listening ability but also the transmission time can be shortened.

  Naturally, it may be converted into a substitution word having a difficulty level (low) and a synonym and having a longer mora length than the original word.

  Returning to FIG. 5, the word conversion unit 36 converts the word of difficulty (high) into a replacement word, and sends it to the text synthesis unit 37. Therefore, the replacement words “elevate” and “run away” are sent out. The order of the words remains given.

  The text synthesizing unit 37 synthesizes words sent from the difficulty level determining unit 35 and the word converting unit 36 to create text data. That is, with respect to the words “3”, “1”, “2”, “2”, refer to the order and rearrange the words in the order. As a result, a post-conversion message “Please escape to a high place” is created.

  The voice conversion device 30 transmits the converted message to the console 20. The console 20 converts the converted message into an audio signal again. For example, the user may speak again and collect sound from the microphone 11 by displaying on the display unit or printing. Alternatively, the speech signal may be acquired from the speech synthesizer 23 by being transmitted to the speech synthesizer 23.

  Since the transmission unit 17 transmits an audio signal that does not include the difficult word (high) to the slave station 200, the slave station 200 can amplify the converted message from the speaker 53.

[Modification]
In FIG. 5, the original message converted into the audio signal is converted into the converted message, but the timing for creating the converted message may be set to an appropriate timing in practice.

  FIG. 7 shows another example of a functional block diagram of the voice conversion device 30. FIG. 7A is a functional block diagram when a voice message is given as text data (electronic data or electronic file). In FIG. 7A, text data is given instead of the voice signal uttered by the user, so that there is a voice message acquisition unit 41 instead of the voice signal acquisition unit 31. The voice message acquisition unit 41 acquires a voice message suitable for emergency information from the console 20 or the network 24. When acquiring from the console 20, there are text data of a voice message selected by the user, text data automatically selected according to a notification from the telemeter 300, text data instructed by J-Alert, and the like.

  If the voice message is text data, voice recognition is not necessary, and the voice recognition unit 32 is not necessary. That is, the text data of the voice message acquired by the voice message acquisition unit 41 is directly sent to the word division unit 33. The subsequent procedure is the same as in FIG.

  FIG. 7B is a functional block diagram when a voice message is given as a printed state on paper. The content of the voice message may be transmitted by FAX or handed to the user once it has been launched. In this case, it may be converted into a voice signal by the user uttering as shown in FIG. 5, but there is a need for voice recognition or the like, and a recognition error may be uttered. For this reason, when a voice message is given as being printed on paper, it may be effective to perform the following processing.

  In FIG. 7B, since a voice message is given as a document, a scanner device 42 that optically reads the document is used. The scanner device 42 may be connected to the audio conversion device 30 or may be connected to the console 20. In any case, the audio conversion device 30 can acquire image data of a document. The scanner device 42 generally has a line sensor in which image sensors are arranged one-dimensionally. However, a document may be photographed with a so-called camera (two-dimensional image sensor) to create image data.

  The voice conversion device 30 has an OCR (Optical Character Reader) unit 43, and converts a voice message described in the image data into text data. Therefore, text data is obtained in the same manner as in FIG. The subsequent processing is the same as in FIG.

  In addition, it is also possible to perform the same processing after translating a voice message (voice signal, text data, manuscript) into a foreign language. When many foreigners live in the area where the slave station 200 is laid, the voice message can be expanded in the native language of the foreigner.

  As described above, there is no restriction on how the voice message is input to the voice conversion device 30. If the input voice message is converted into text data, the processing of the present embodiment can be similarly performed. .

[Operation procedure]
FIG. 8 is an example of a flowchart showing an operation procedure of the voice conversion device 30.
First, the voice conversion device 30 acquires a voice message conveying the contents of emergency information in the form of text data (S10). That is, the voice recognition unit 32 recognizes the voice signal acquired by the voice signal acquisition unit 31, the voice message acquisition unit 41 receives the text data itself, or the scanner scans the document and the OCR unit 43 sets the text data. Obtained by converting to.

  Next, the word dividing unit 33 divides the text data into words (S20).

  The word difficulty level calculation unit 34 calculates the difficulty level of each word with reference to the word database 38 by difficulty level (S30). Thereby, the difficulty level is attached to each word.

  Next, the difficulty level determination unit 35 classifies each word into a difficulty level (high) and a difficulty level (low) (S40).

  And the word conversion part 36 converts the word of difficulty (high) into a replacement word with reference to the synonym database 39 according to difficulty (S50). If there is no word of difficulty (high), there is no need to convert.

  Then, the text synthesizing unit 37 synthesizes the replacement word converted from the word of difficulty (high) and the word of difficulty (low) according to the original appearance order of the words in the original message (S60).

  As described above, the disaster prevention radio system 100 according to the present embodiment can amplify a voice message that can be easily heard by local residents.

  A present Example demonstrates the disaster prevention radio | wireless system 100 which can distribute a voice message for every area according to the condition of an area.

  FIG. 9 is an example of a diagram illustrating a schematic operation of the disaster prevention radio system 100 according to the present embodiment. In the present embodiment, the constituent elements denoted by the same reference numerals in the first embodiment perform similar functions, and therefore, only the main constituent elements of the present embodiment may be mainly described.

  Since the slave stations 200 are scattered in the area, the situation regarding the ease of listening to the loud sound may vary depending on the area. In FIG. 9, the area A is often difficult to hear because there are busy streets, transportation facilities, roads, and the like. On the other hand, since area B is a quiet residential area, it is rarely difficult to hear. Therefore, it may be sufficient to convert only the voice message that is output to the area A into the converted message. Further, since the original message is louded in the region B, the emergency information can be loudly voiced early without being converted.

  Each slave station has a microphone 54, and measures the presence or absence of ambient noise regularly or when instructed by the disaster prevention radio system 100, and transmits it to the master station communication device 21 together with the identification information of the slave station 200. Yes. The disaster prevention radio system 100 has a noise table 18, and updates and registers the presence of noise and the absence of noise in association with the identification information of the slave station 200.

  When the emergency wireless system 100 is in a state of notifying emergency information, the disaster prevention radio system 100 refers to the noise table 18 and transmits the voice signal of the original message to the slave station 200 without noise. Therefore, the original message can be amplified early in a quiet environment area. On the other hand, the converted message voice signal is transmitted to the slave station 200 with noise. Therefore, in an environment where it is difficult to hear a loud sound, the converted message converted into a word that is easy to hear can be loud.

  The functional block diagram of the voice conversion device 30 may be the same as that of the first embodiment (FIGS. 5 and 7). On the other hand, the console side controls whether the original message or the converted message is transmitted according to the slave station 200.

  FIG. 10 shows an example of a block diagram of the disaster prevention wireless system of the present embodiment. In this embodiment, the console 20 has a noise table 18 and is updated as appropriate. In an area where the degree of noise does not change, it is not necessary to update the noise table 18, and a person in charge or the like may create the static noise table 18 once.

  The control unit 15 refers to the noise table 18 and causes the transmission unit 17 to transmit the converted message to the slave station 200 in which presence of noise is registered. An original message is transmitted to the transmission unit 17 to the slave station 200 in which no noise is registered. The transmission unit 17 sets the user code of the slave station instructed to the paging channel, and transmits the voice signal of the original message or the converted message to the slave station 200.

  FIG. 11A is an example of a flowchart illustrating an operation procedure of the control unit 15. The operation procedure of FIG. 11 is executed, for example, when a voice message to be transmitted to the slave station 200 is determined, and the creation of a post-conversion message has already been started.

  For example, the control unit 15 refers to the transmission destination slave stations 200 registered in the noise table 18 in order, and determines whether or not “with noise” is registered (S110).

  When “with noise” is not registered (No in S110), since the area where the slave station 200 is laid is quiet, the control unit 15 transmits the original message from the master station communication device 21 to the slave station 200 (S120). .

  When “with noise” is registered (Yes in S110), the control unit 15 creates and transmits a converted message (S140). This process will be described with reference to FIG.

  Next, the control unit 15 determines whether or not processing has been performed up to the last slave station 200 of the noise table 18 (S130). If the last slave station 200 has not been processed (No in S130), the processing from Step S110 is repeated. Therefore, in the case of the slave station 200 without noise, the original message can be transmitted early.

  FIG. 11B is an example of a flowchart showing the processing procedure of step S140. The control unit determines whether a post-conversion message has been created (S141).

  When the post-conversion message is created (Yes in S141), the control unit 15 transmits the post-conversion message from the master station communication device 21 to the slave station 200 (S142).

  When the post-conversion message has not been created (No in S141), the control unit 15 waits until the post-conversion message is created (S143).

  Note that the transmission procedure as shown in FIG. 11 is an example, and the control unit 15 transmits the original message to all the slave stations 200, and then only to the slave stations 200 registered as having noise in the noise table 18. You may send the message after conversion. In this case, since the original message is transmitted to all areas at an early stage, some local residents can hear loud sounds even in areas with noise. Further, since the converted message is amplified in a noisy area thereafter, local residents in the noisy area can get an opportunity to listen to the loud sound.

  In addition, instead of transmitting in order for each slave station, the slave table 200 “with noise” and the slave station 200 “without noise” are listed from the noise table 18, and each slave station is used using group broadcasting. 200 may be transmitted simultaneously.

  As described above, according to the disaster prevention radio system 100 of the present embodiment, the voice message is amplified early in an area where the necessity of converting the voice message is low, and the converted message is displayed in an area that is difficult to hear due to noise. Can speak loudly.

  In the second embodiment, the disaster prevention radio system 100 that distributes voice messages for each area according to noise has been described, but in this embodiment, the disaster prevention radio system 100 that distributes voice messages according to the presence or absence of echoes will be described.

  FIG. 12 is an example of a diagram illustrating a schematic operation of the disaster prevention radio system 100 according to the present embodiment. The loud sound is loud and can be transmitted far away. On the other hand, depending on the geographical features of the area, echo (Yamahiko, reverberation sound) may be generated, and it may be difficult to hear (details will be described later). Area A in FIG. 12 is a village in a mountainous region, and the loud sound echoes in the mountains and is difficult for local residents to hear. On the other hand, in the region B, there are few terrains that cause echoes, and it is unlikely to be difficult to hear. Therefore, as in the case of the second embodiment, there is a sufficient possibility that only the voice message that is amplified in the area A is converted into the converted message. Further, since the original message is louded in the region B, the emergency information can be louded out earlier than the conversion.

[Effectiveness of word conversion in echo environment]
The applicant experimented on the effectiveness of replacing words of high difficulty with replacement words in an echo environment. In the following, intimacy is adopted as the difficulty level.

1. The voice of the speaker mya recorded in the FW07 database [Kondo et al., IEICE Tech. Bulletin, SP2007-157, 2008.] was used as the sound source for the experiment contents. For the word familiarity, the top two of the four ranks (high familiarity: 7.0-5.5, low familiarity: 5.5-4.0) were used. In this experiment, an environment with one or two subsequent sounds was simulated.

  FIG. 13A shows the time pattern of the subsequent sound generated by the echo. As shown in the figure, a quadruple word was used as one listening sound, and one or two subsequent sounds were added with a delay time specified there. ○ □ △ × in the figure represents four different words. Since one word is 4 mora and its length is about 750 ms, the time difference of 1/2 word length is 375 ms. The subsequent sound used was the same sound as the original sound. Because of the nature of the FW07 database, each listener needed to listen to all 400 words of one familiarity condition, so five speech sets were created, and 80 speech words (20 quadruple words in each set). ) Was randomly distributed. There are seven types of time lags of the following sounds (conditions A to G in FIG. 13A), and at least seven listeners are required to avoid listening again to the four-word words that have already been heard under different conditions. It was necessary. For this reason, five different listeners were assigned to each condition. Seven listeners participated in both high and low intimacy experiments. The listener was instructed to sit on the chair in the soundproof room and fill in the answer sheet on the answer sheet in 15 seconds after one quad word was presented. The sound was presented to both ears via headphones (SennheiserHDA-200).

2. Results and discussion
FIG. 13B is a diagram showing the average correct answer under each experimental condition of intimacy. Black bars in the figure indicate high familiarity and white bars indicate low familiarity conditions. Two-factor analysis of variance was performed with seven time-shift conditions and two intimacy conditions as factors within the subject. As a result of the analysis, the main effect of the time lag condition (F (6,
594) = 141.63, p <.001), main effect of intimacy condition (F (1, 99) = 85.98, p <.001), interaction between time shift and intimacy (F (6, 594) = 2.15 , p <.05), both were significantly different. In addition, except for the condition of only the original sound, the correct answer rate when the familiarity was high was significantly high. This suggests that intimacy is an effective vocabulary difficulty control index even in outdoor environments where long-path echo is present. When the analysis was performed according to intimacy, there was no significant difference in the average accuracy rate (between E and G) when there were two subsequent sounds under the high familiarity condition, but there was only one subsequent sound. A significant difference was observed between the conditions in which the delay time of the subsequent sound was one word length (B and D). When the number of subsequent sounds is two, the accuracy rate is generally low, so it is considered that the influence of the delay time of the subsequent sounds was not observed. Although the same tendency was observed in the low familiarity condition, a significant difference was observed between the conditions in which the delay time of the subsequent sound was one word length even when the number of subsequent sounds was two (B and D, E and G). In the future, we plan to calculate the word intelligibility for each appearance position and conduct a detailed study.

3. Experiment contents (Experiment 2 (in case of different intimacy))
In Experiment 2, all four consecutive words used the same familiarity. In Experiment 2, quadruple words were created with words having different intimacy, and the influence of the relationship between the intimacy of the preceding sound and the succeeding sound on the intelligibility was examined. The delay time of the succeeding sound was limited to the three conditions A, C, and G in Experiment 1, and the quadrant was changed to a pattern in which the intimacy level was alternately switched. Furthermore, two conditions were prepared starting from high intimacy (high to low order) and two conditions starting from low intimacy (low to high order), and three listeners were assigned to each condition.

4). Results and Discussion In order to compare the speech intelligibility between the case of high and low order and the case of low and high order, the correct answer rate of each word of the quadruple word was calculated. FIG. 13C shows the average correct answer rate for each word of the conditions C and G. The black bars in the figure represent words with high familiarity, and the white bars represent words with low familiarity. For example, the second “low” indicates a case where a low-intimacy preceding sound overlaps a high-intimacy following sound. As a result of analysis of variance, the main effect of delay time of subsequent sound (F (2,398) = 422.14, p <.001), the main effect of quadruple words (F (3, 597) = 439.87, p <.001), parent Significant differences were observed in the main effects of density (F (1, 99) = 7.3, p <.01). There was also a significant difference in the interaction of the three factors (F (6, 1194) = 5.83, p <.001). As a result of the sub-test and multiple comparisons, the correct answer rate when the following sound with high familiarity overlaps the preceding sound with low familiarity is more significant than when the following sound with low familiarity overlaps with the preceding sound with high familiarity. (The second condition C, the fourth condition C, the second condition G). This indicates that when the target word is low intimacy, it is difficult to hear when high intimacy is superimposed by echo, suggesting that control of word intimacy in the sentence is important. doing.

5. Summary The effect of intimacy on word intelligibility in the presence of longpass echo was investigated. As a result of experiments, it became clear that the one with lower intimacy is strongly affected by echo. That is, for example, in FIG. 13B, during the delay time of the subsequent sound up to the condition E, the high familiarity word has a higher accuracy rate than the low familiarity word. Further, in FIG. 13C, when the high familiarity word overlaps the low familiarity word by echo, the correct answer rate of the low familiarity word is lowered. Therefore, it can be expected that the correct answer rate is greatly improved by converting the low familiarity word into the high familiarity word. For example, in FIG. 13B, in the condition CDE, even if the delay time is the same, the accuracy rate of the high familiarity is nearly 15 to 20% high, so if the low familiarity word is converted into the high familiarity word, The accuracy rate can be expected to increase by 15 to 20%.

  From the above experimental results, it can be confirmed that the conversion of words by the speech conversion apparatus 30 of this embodiment is effective.

  FIG. 14 shows an example of a block diagram of the disaster prevention radio system of the present embodiment. In this embodiment, the console 20 has an echo table 19 and is updated as appropriate. Since the presence / absence and degree of echo are caused by an environment that is relatively difficult to change, such as terrain, the necessity of updating the echo table 19 is low. Therefore, the echo table 19 can be created by the person in charge confirming the sound by listening to the loud sound in the area or listening from the local residents.

Moreover, you may create as follows.
FIG. 15 is an example of a diagram for explaining an observation result of echoes in the slave station 200. In this figure, the state of voices simultaneously emitted from three slave stations at a certain point is shown. The horizontal axis is time, and the vertical axis is relative amplitude (Relative Amplitude). The control unit 52 of the slave station 200 uses the reference to the time when the sound is amplified from the slave station 200 (time t0), and the sound that the microphone 54 emits from another slave station at time t1 (the echo intensity of the claims) Measure delay time Δt until it is detected as an example. Time t2 is the time when the voice from another slave station was measured. In this figure, Δt is determined using sound from other slave stations, but there are obstacles such as mountains and large buildings in the environment that are not affected by other slave stations. In some cases, Δt is determined by the reflected sound from each obstacle. From the experimental results shown in FIGS. 12 (a) and 12 (b), the correct answer rate tends to decrease as the delay time increases. Therefore, when Δt is equal to or greater than the threshold T, it should be determined that there is an echo. Further, if the relative amplitude of the reflected sound is not greater than or equal to the threshold value R, it is not recognized as an echo. Therefore, it can be determined that there is an echo when Δt of the measurement result is equal to or greater than the threshold value T and the relative amplitude is equal to or greater than the threshold value R.

  Each slave station measures Δt and relative amplitude in response to a request from the disaster prevention radio system 100 and transmits it to the disaster prevention radio system 100. The control unit 15 of the disaster prevention radio system 100 compares Δt with the threshold value T, the relative amplitude and the threshold value R, and determines the presence or absence of an echo. Note that the slave station 200 may make the determination.

  In the present embodiment, it is preferable that the substitution word in the synonym database classified by difficulty is guaranteed to be robust against echo. That is, a synonym of difficulty (high), in which it is determined that the ease of listening is equal to or higher than a threshold value in a sensitivity test performed in an echo environment, is registered. Therefore, not only is it guaranteed that the difficulty level is low by a general dictionary (or even if it is not guaranteed), the word conversion unit can be replaced with a replacement word that is easy to hear for a long pass echo.

  FIG. 16 is an example of a flowchart illustrating an operation procedure of the control unit. In the operation procedure of FIG. 16, the determination in step S110 of FIG. 11 determines whether or not “with noise” is registered in the transmission destination slave station 200 registered in the echo table 19 (S115). ). The subsequent processing is the same as in FIG.

  As described above, according to the disaster prevention radio system 100 of the present embodiment, the voice message is amplified early in an area where the necessity of converting the voice message is low, and after conversion to an area that is difficult to hear because of an echo. Can amplify the message.

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 11 Microphone 20 Console 21 Master station communication apparatus 24 Network 30 Voice converter 33 Word division part 34 Word difficulty calculation part 35 Difficulty determination part 36 Word conversion part 53 Speaker 100 Disaster prevention radio system 200 Child station

Claims (8)

An outdoor environmental voice transmission device that transmits voice messages for disaster prevention to one or more slave stations laid in the area,
Voice message acquisition means for acquiring the voice message;
Message dividing means for dividing the voice message acquired by the voice message acquiring means into a meaningful symbol string or requesting the outside to divide the voice message into the symbol string;
For each symbol string divided by the message dividing means, a symbol string difficulty determining means for determining a difficulty level when a person understands the meaning;
A message creating means for creating a converted message by replacing the high difficulty symbol string determined by the symbol string difficulty determining means with a difficulty level equal to or higher than a threshold value with a synonym having a difficulty level less than the threshold value;
Message transmitting means for transmitting the converted message to a slave station;
An outdoor environment audio transmission device comprising: Echo determination information in which the presence or absence of echo in the area where the slave station is laid is associated with the slave station identification information, and
The slave station registered to have an echo in the echo determination information causes the message transmission means to transmit the converted message,
Control means for transmitting the voice message to the message transmitting means to a slave station registered as having no echo in the echo determination information;
The outdoor environment audio transmission apparatus according to claim 1, comprising: Noise judgment information in which the presence or absence of noise in the area where the slave station is laid is associated with the slave station identification information, and
The slave station registered as having noise in the noise determination information causes the message transmission means to transmit the converted message,
Control means for transmitting the voice message to the message transmitting means to a slave station registered as having no noise in the noise judgment information;
The outdoor environment audio transmission apparatus according to claim 1, comprising: The control means causes the message sending means to send the voice message to all the slave stations, and then sends the converted message only to the slave stations registered as having no echo in the echo determination information. Send
The outdoor environment audio transmission apparatus according to claim 2. The control means determines in any order whether an echo or no echo is registered in the slave station registered in the echo determination information,
For the slave station registered without echo, let the message transmission means transmit the voice message,
For the slave station registered as having an echo, as soon as the post-conversion message is created, the message transmitting means transmits the post-conversion message.
The outdoor environment audio transmission apparatus according to claim 2. Corresponding to a high difficulty symbol string, a low difficulty symbol string that has a difficulty level less than the threshold, is synonymous with the high difficulty symbol string, and has a shorter utterance time than the high difficulty symbol string Has a synonym database,
The message creation means replaces the high difficulty symbol string determined by the symbol string difficulty determination means with a difficulty level equal to or higher than a threshold with a low difficulty symbol string registered in the synonym database, Creating the converted message with a shorter utterance time than the message;
The outdoor environment audio transmission apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 5, wherein There is a synonym database that is synonymous with the high difficulty symbol string and is associated with the low difficulty symbol string that is synonymous with the high difficulty symbol string and that is easy to hear in the echo environment. And
The message creation means replaces the high difficulty symbol string determined by the symbol string difficulty determination means with a difficulty level equal to or higher than a threshold with a low difficulty symbol string registered in the synonym database. Composing a message,
The outdoor environment audio transmission apparatus according to claim 6. An outdoor environment audio transmission device that transmits a voice message for disaster prevention to one or more slave stations laid in the area, and an outdoor environment audio transmission system having one or more slave stations,
Voice message acquisition means for acquiring the voice message;
Message dividing means for dividing the voice message acquired by the voice message acquiring means into a meaningful symbol string or requesting the outside to divide the voice message into the symbol string;
For each symbol string divided by the message dividing means, a symbol string difficulty determining means for determining a difficulty level when a person understands the meaning;
A message creating means for creating a converted message by replacing the high difficulty symbol string determined by the symbol string difficulty determining means with a difficulty level equal to or higher than a threshold value with a synonym having a difficulty level less than the threshold value;
Message transmitting means for transmitting the converted message to a slave station,
The slave station is
Message receiving means for receiving the converted message;
Amplifying means for amplifying the converted message,
An outdoor environment audio transmission system characterized by that.

Images