JPH0457260B2 - - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] (A) Industrial Application Field This invention relates to a voice information transmission method that can efficiently transmit a large amount of information.

(b) Summary A single transmitting station transmits a large number of information bundles one after another to a large number of receiving units. One information bundle consists of three elements: text, classification code, and unique code. Text is a string of characters and symbols that represent audio information. The classification code is a code that indicates the content of the text. The unique code is a code attached to each text.

Characters, symbols, and numbers are converted into, for example, 8-bit digital signals. Rather than conveying voice information as voice vibrations, it conveys characters and symbols as digital signals.

Although it may be converted into an analog signal depending on the convenience of the transport means, it is essentially transported as a digital signal.

The transportation means may be wired or wireless.

There may be one transmitting station, or there may be two or more.

If there are two or more transmitting stations, the same transport means is used by dividing it in time. Therefore, at a certain time, only one broadcast station is transmitting to a certain receiving section.

The receiving section has one or a small number of predetermined classification codes. The receiving unit receives all the information bundles, but selects only the information bundles having a classification code that matches its own classification code.

The receiving unit sequentially stores this information bundle in the storage unit, but in order to avoid re-storing the same information bundle that has already been stored, it is necessary to Only information bundles with signs are selected. The selected information bundles are stored.
When the receiver gives an output instruction, the text part of the accumulated information bundle is converted into speech and output from the speaker. The receiver can know the information by hearing.

(C) Prior art As a means of transmitting audio information to a large number of people,
There is a radio broadcast.

Radio broadcasting connects multiple transmitting stations and numerous receivers. A transmitting station monopolizes one carrier frequency. The receiver can select any transmitting station by adjusting the dial.

Audio is continuously output from the speakers. Since the recipient cannot know the content of the information in advance, the recipient may miss necessary information unless he/she listens to the audio all the time.

One transmitting station transmits many types of information, so selecting a particular transmitting station does not mean selecting the content of the information.

What kind of audio information to transmit is determined by the transmitting station.

The receiver has the freedom to decide whether to listen or not and the freedom to choose which station to listen to. However, recipients do not have the freedom to decide what information to listen to and when to listen to it.

(d) Problems with conventional technology Radio broadcasting has the following problems.

(1) You cannot automatically select and listen to only the information you want. For example, it is not possible to listen to the market prices of a particular stock market at any given time.

(2) Radio receivers perform processing from receiving radio waves to outputting audio without time expansion or contraction or delay. Therefore, it is necessary to listen to it according to the broadcast time.

(3) One frequency cannot be used by multiple broadcasting stations by time-sharing (for example, dividing it into every few tens of seconds).

(E) Purpose One of the purposes of the present invention is to provide a voice information transmission method that allows the receiver to selectively listen to only the information he/she desires.

A second object of the present invention is to provide an audio information transmission method that allows the recipient to listen to necessary information at any convenient time.

A third object of the present invention is to provide a voice information transmission method that allows a single frequency to be used by multiple transmitting stations in a time-divided manner (for example, every few tens of seconds).

The fourth objective is to provide a method of transmitting a large amount of audio information to a large number of people using a limited information transmission capacity (for example, frequency band) by performing high information compression.

A fifth object of the present invention is to provide an audio information transmission method that enables the transmission of diverse information with rich content.

It is a sixth object of the present invention to provide a method of transmitting voice information in which necessary information is not left unheard by the recipient.

(f) Configuration The transmitting station transmits an information bundle consisting of a classification code for classifying information content, a unique signal attached to each text, and text, which is a string of characters and symbols representing audio information. There are many kinds of information bundles, and they are independent from each other. The contents of one information bundle and the next information bundle may or may not be related.

Unlike radio broadcasts, it does not have continuous content and does not need to be listened to continuously. A certain information bundle is not only transmitted once, but may also be transmitted repeatedly two or three times.

In the receiving section, one or a small number of classification codes are predetermined, and the information bundle having that classification code is selected, and the others are discarded. Among these information bundles, the information bundles already stored in the receiving section are discarded.

Information bundles having the same classification code but not stored in the storage unit of the receiving section are detected by comparing the unique codes, and are stored in the storage unit.

When necessary, the receiver converts the text of the accumulated information bundle into audio and listens to it as audio.

The three information bundle elements will be explained.

() Classification code This is a code that indicates the content of the text. The information to be transmitted includes weather forecasts, stock market conditions, traffic information, and the like. A classification code is attached to each item. The transmitted information bundle has various classification codes. However, the receiving section only supports one or a small number of classification codes. For example, you can select only the weather forecast. However, the designation of the classification code can be changed in the receiving section.

For example, the classification code uses a slash symbol "/" followed by a 10-digit number.

Give an example.

/0000010034...Midosuji traffic information /0012000000...Weather overview Here, suratsuyu/ indicates a classification code. Regarding traffic information, it can include information over a wide range, but it can also specify information about a localized area such as Midosuji or any point on Midosuji.

As for the weather overview, it is possible to specify local weather as well as nationwide weather.

Regarding stock market prices, you can choose to send the overall market price, but you can also send and selectively receive the market price of one particular stock.

These specifications can be made using classification codes.

() Unique code A code assigned to each text. This is to distinguish between different texts and to prevent duplicates from being accumulated in the receiving section.

As long as the text can be identified, serial numbers may be added to the text. However, here, we will add the creation date, time, and minute of the text, the number of times the text was sent, and the sending time.

The unique code can be composed of, for example, a yen symbol "¥" followed by a 16-digit number. Give an example.

¥8412041034011102 This is a text created at 10:34 on December 4, 1984, indicating that this is the first transmission and the transmission time was 11:02. ¥ is a mark indicating that it is a unique code. Here's another example.

¥8412041343031705 This is a text created at 13:43 on December 4, 1984, indicating that this is the third time it has been sent and the sending time is 17:05.

() Text This is audio information. A character string or symbol that can be converted into speech by a speech rule synthesizer (text synthesizer). Give an example.

Midousujido▼ori, Kitamukiwa, Jiyutaide▼su.

This is katakana, punctuation marks, and accent marks▼
This is a series of lines. In the receiving section, it is converted into speech by a speech rule synthesizer.

The text can also be a string of characters or symbols consisting of katakana, kanji, punctuation marks, alphanumeric characters, phonetic symbols, numbers, accent marks, and blank symbols. In the case of kanji, one kanji can be represented by two consecutive bytes.

It is also possible to limit the number of characters a little more and make the text consist of sentences consisting of katakana, punctuation marks, alphanumeric characters, numbers, accent marks, and space marks. Katakana has about 50 characters, while Alphabet has no distinction between uppercase and lowercase letters, so 26 characters are enough. In this case, even if the number (10) and other symbols are added, it can be expressed as a 7-bit (128 types) digital signal.

It may also be expressed as an 8-bit digital signal with some leeway.

Tenkiga▼Ikiyou△De▼S. Nishiniho▼Nwon △Otsutail (hereinafter omitted) Here, △ means a blank.

The classification code, unique code, and text have been explained above. The order of transmission is classification code, unique code, and text, or unique code, classification code, and text.

The three elements are combined to create a single information bundle.
Explain an example.

Example 1: Traffic information/0000010034￥8412041034011102Midousjido▼ori,kitamkiwa,jiyutaide▼su.

In this example, the classification code /0000010034 indicates that the content of the text is traffic information for Midosuji Street. The unique code is a text created at 10:34 on December 4, 1984, indicating that this is the first transmission. The text tells us that Midosuji Street is congested heading north. This is the only part that is output as audio.

Example 2: Weather forecast/0012000000￥8412041343031705 Tenkiga▼Ikiyou△De▼S, Nishiniho▼Nwootsutail (The following is omitted) In this example, the classification code /0012000000 indicates that it is a weather forecast. The unique code is December 4, 198413
The text was created at 1:43 a.m., indicating that this is the third transmission, and that the transmission time was 5:05 p.m.

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a transmitting station and a receiving station.

There is one or more transmitting stations 1. If there is more than one, send the information bundle in time division.

There are many receivers 2. In the receiving section 2,
There are three users for each.

The information bundle conveying means 4 may be wired or wireless. In the case of a wired connection, a dedicated line may be installed, or a telephone line may be used.

In the case of wireless, a carrier wave of an appropriate frequency is used. It may be any frequency from several hundred KHz to several hundred MHz.

FIG. 1 illustrates an example in which radio waves are used as a carrier means. It is transmitted by antenna 8 and received by antenna 9.

Next, the configurations of the transmitting station and the receiving section will be explained.

(g) Configuration of transmitting station Figure 2 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the transmitting station.

The sender sends an instruction regarding the information content to be transmitted to the transmission content creation unit 21.

All data to be transmitted is stored in the database 22,
22'...etc. The database is, for example, a weather information database of the Japan Meteorological Agency, a police traffic information database, a stock market price database, or the like.

According to the instructions, the transmission content creation unit 21 pulls out the necessary information from the databases 22, 22'.
A classification code and a unique code are added and sent to the transmission content memory 25. Since the unique code contains the creation time of the text, the time obtained from the clock 23 is entered into the unique code.

For example, if you want to send weather forecast information, search the Japan Meteorological Agency's database to obtain the text of the weather forecast. This becomes the text. Add classification code and unique code to text.

Since the classification code indicates the content of the text, it is given by the database. In the case of a nationwide weather forecast or a weather forecast for a specific region, a classification code corresponding to the weather forecast is predetermined, so it is added.

The unique code includes the date, month, day, hour and minute of creation, number of times of transmission, and time of transmission. The transmission content creation unit 21 adds only the known creation date and time.

A large number of information bundles consisting of texts, classification codes, and unique codes are written into the transmission content memory 25.

Text consists of characters and symbols. The characters are replaced by 8-bit or 7-bit digital signals, for example. Symbols such as slash, \, comma, period, △, ▼ are also replaced with 8-bit or 7-bit digital signals. This conversion is
It is standardized by standards such as JIS.

If an 8-bit signal system is used, the slash "/" is determined to be 00101111, "\" is determined to be 01011100, and so on.

Therefore, the information bundle consisting of text, classification code, and unique code can be replaced with a digital signal sequence.

Since the information is a digital signal string, the transmission content memory 25 can store these information bundles.
Since the memory is conveniently 8 bits or 7 bits, one character, symbol, or number can be stored by one memory element.

It is well known to store characters and the like in a memory as digital signals in this manner.

The memory operation unit 26 scans the transmission content memory 25 and sequentially extracts the text, classification code, and unique code, and sends them to the broadcast time addition unit 27. At this time, the number of transmissions is added to the unique code.

The broadcast time addition section 27 adds the transmission time obtained from the clock 24 to the unique code. Then, the digital code modulator 28 receives a classification code, a unique code,
Send a bundle of information consisting of text. At this point, the unique code is completed and the information bundle is also completed.

The digital code modulator 28 sequentially converts an information bundle consisting of a classification code, a unique code, and text into an analog signal.

Conversion to an analog signal is necessary to transmit the information packet wirelessly. If a wired transmission system such as copper wire or optical fiber is used, the digital signal may be transmitted as is.

Now, when transmitting wirelessly, a carrier wave of a certain frequency is required. The digital signal sequence of the information bundle modulates the amplitude (AM) or frequency (FM) of the carrier wave.

For example, the carrier wave is modulated at 2100 Hz for a digital signal "0" and at 1300 Hz for a digital signal "1". The length of one signal is
1/1200sec is sufficient.

The modulation frequency may be higher.

As described above, the conveyance means may be a wired broadcast using a copper wire cable or an optical fiber cable, or may be a wireless broadcast using radio waves.

In any case, the voice is not transmitted as is, but the characters and symbols are converted into digital signals and transmitted as "0" and "1" signals.

Sound is a vibration of several tens of hertz to several thousand hertz. In the case of radio broadcasting, this vibration modulates the strength (AM) or frequency (FM) of the carrier wave. The receiver demodulates this and drives the speaker. Therefore, the speed at which audio information is transmitted is limited by the speed at which humans can distinguish the audio. This is also limited by the speed at which humans can speak.

However, in the present invention, the characters that form the basis of speech,
For example, let the symbol be an 8-bit digital signal,
This is transmitted as is or by carrying it on a carrier wave. The speed of transmission is not limited by how fast a person can tell or speak. Therefore, the transmission capacity can be significantly increased.

Furthermore, when PCM modulating voice vibrations, it is very difficult to convert the vibrations per character into an 8-bit signal.

In this way, without converting audio information into audio vibrations, text,
Since it is transmitted as a string of symbols, a large amount of information can be transmitted in a short time even with a limited capacity transmission means.

In the case of wireless transmission, electromagnetic waves of appropriate frequencies are used, but in this case, digital signals must be converted into analog signals. For example, this:
This is done by changing the modulation frequency that modulates the carrier wave.

Converting a digital signal to an analog signal is completely different from converting a numerical value to A/D or D/A.

The information bundle thus converted into an analog signal is sent out by the radio transmitter 29.

Since the transmission content memory is scanned one after another, such information bundles are sent out one after another. In the transmission content memory, there is no relation between the preceding and succeeding texts, and independent information is stored therein. Since this is being sent out, there is no need for the receiver to listen to it continuously, and there is no point in listening to it continuously.

(h) Configuration of receiving section Even if there is one transmitting station, there are many receiving sections. The receiving section receives the same information bundle, but discards all unnecessary information, stores only the necessary information bundle in the storage section, and converts it into audio when necessary so that the user can listen to it.

The configuration of the receiving section is shown in FIG.

Radio waves are captured by antenna 9. wireless receiver 3
1, select only the carrier wave signal of a specific frequency,
This is amplified to obtain an analog signal. This is a carrier wave modulated by a digital signal contained in an information bundle.

The digital code demodulator 32 returns the analog signal to the original digital signal. This is an information bundle consisting of a classification code, a unique code, and text.

The classification code of information desired by the user is registered in the classification code memory 34 in advance.

The sorter 33 sequentially compares the classification code of the received information bundle with the classification code registered in the classification code memory 34.

If the classification code matching the classification code of the received information bundle is not among the registered ones, the received information bundle is information that the user does not want.
This bundle of information will be discarded.

If the classification code of the received information bundle matches any of the registered classification codes, the information bundle is sent to the next sorter 35.

The sorter 25 distinguishes between the unique code of the received information bundle and
The unique code of the storage unit 36 is sequentially compared.

Suppose that the same unique code as the received information bundle is stored in the storage unit 36. this is,
This means that the same text has already been stored in the storage section 36. In this case, this received information bundle is unnecessary and is therefore discarded. This is because there is no need to store the same text twice.

Suppose that there is no unique code in the storage unit 36 that is the same as the unique code of the received information bundle. In this case, this information bundle is not stored, so the received information bundle is sent to the storage section 36,
Accumulate text, classification codes, and unique codes.

However, when comparing the unique codes in the selector 35, only the unique codes of the portions necessary to specify the text are compared. The year, month, day, hour, and minute portions of text creation are compared. The number of times of transmission and the time of transmission are not compared because there are no two different information bundles that are transmitted at the same time and number of times.

Such sorting is necessary because the same information bundle may be sent out multiple times. Even if the information bundles are the same, the number of times of transmission and the time of transmission should be different, so even if these parts are compared and these are different, this does not mean that they are different information bundles.

Sending the same bundle of information repeatedly means that the text has not changed during that time, that reception errors may occur at the receiving section, and that the receiver may have been switched off at the receiving section. Due to some reason.

In this way, information bundles consisting of texts, classification codes, and unique codes are accumulated one after another in the storage unit 36.

The user issues an output instruction to output audio information when it is convenient and necessary. This can be done by a suitable switch.

The scanning unit 37 sequentially retrieves texts from the storage unit 36 when an output instruction is received from the user. Only the text is extracted; the classification code and unique code are not extracted.

The extracted text is sent to either the display section 38, the speech rule synthesizer 39, or both.

The display section 38 expresses information using characters, and for example, a CRT device is used. It is suitable for use by users with impaired hearing or in very noisy environments.

The speech rule synthesizer 39 converts text characters and symbols into speech, and commercially available modules can be used. For example, if the text is expressed in kana characters or kana symbols, you can use TSS-500C manufactured by Toyo Tsushinki Co., Ltd., and if the text is in English, you can use DEC talk manufactured by DEC Corporation in the US.
PROSE2000 from SPEECH PLUS in the US can be used.

The text converted into speech is sent to the speaker 40
is output from. The user can hear the text. Auditory recognition is advantageous when it is inconvenient for the user to recognize the display device visually, such as when the user is performing some kind of work or driving a car.

There is no problem if there is only one classification code to be selected in the receiving section. There is no problem even if the scanning section 37 sequentially scans the storage section 36.

However, if two or more classification codes correspond to each other in the receiving section, information bundles of different classification codes will be randomly arranged in the storage section 36. Since scanning is performed sequentially, information of different classification codes may be output alternately. This is hard to hear.

Also, even if two or more classification codes are registered,
Sometimes we only want to know the text of one classification code. In this case, the classification code of the text to be output can also be specified in the output instruction.

(k) Time-division transmission In the present invention, audio information is transmitted discontinuously as a bundle of information, and only a certain type of text is stored in the receiving section and can be listened to at any time after the transmission time. It's becoming like that. There is no requirement that audio information be transmitted continuously in time. Therefore, two or more transmitting stations that share a frequency can divide their transmission time and transmit different information. This is time division transmission.

This is shown in Figure 4.

For example, one minute of transmission time is divided into 45 seconds and 15 seconds. For the first 45 seconds, a national program is transmitted from a major broadcasting station to a wide broadcasting range A. 15 left
Seconds are from small broadcasting stations, using weak radio waves to reach small areas.
Information about B ₁ , B ₂ , etc. is transmitted from a large number of automatic broadcasting stations installed. These radio waves can only reach small areas _B1 , _B2 ... This information is, for example, information about a small area, such as traffic information within a city.

The automatic broadcasting station is at road intersection 51,5
2..., for example, and is unmanned.

This means that in a certain area, there are two transmitting stations. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and three or four or more transmitting stations may be provided. Since the frequency is shared, there is no need for multiple frequency bands.

(J) Effects (1) Recipients can automatically select and listen to only the information they want. No need to listen to unnecessary information. It can save time and prevent brain fatigue.

(2) Recipients can listen to the necessary information at any convenient time.

(3) At the transmitting station, the information stored in the computer can be directly transmitted as an information bundle without going through the acquisition process. The acquisition process does not involve any human intervention, and there is no need for the announcer to speak in front of a microphone. Since there is no need to read out information during transmission, transmission can be automated.

(4) Extremely large amounts of information can be sent in a short period of time. This is because it does not send speech, but rather a string of characters and symbols that can be converted into speech. When audio is transmitted as PCM data, it is 56Kbit/sec.
The amount of information is approximately. This is because the vibrations that form the basis of sound are PCM modulated.

In this method, characters are converted into 8-bit or 7-bit digital signals, so when the corresponding characters are transmitted at the same level as voice,
The amount of information is only about 80 bit/sec.

Only about 1/700 of the information capacity is required to convey the same amount of content.

On the contrary, this means that an extremely large amount of information can be sent in a single hour. This is extremely advantageous compared to radio, etc.

(5) Since a large amount of information can be transmitted, the content to be transmitted can be enriched and diversified.

(6) One frequency can be time-divided and used by multiple transmitting stations that share the frequency.

(7) Information is selected in the receiving section. The transmitting station does not need to select information. Therefore, the transmission program of the transmitting station is simplified.

(8) The transmitting station repeatedly transmits the same text.
Even in areas with low field strength, temporary receiver malfunctions, or temporary interference due to lightning strikes, there is an opportunity to listen to the same text repeatedly. In other words, they rarely ask for the information they need.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of the overall configuration when the present invention is applied to radio broadcasting. FIG. 2 is a schematic configuration diagram of a transmitting station. Third
The figure is a schematic configuration diagram of the receiving section. FIG. 4 is a broadcast area schematic diagram illustrating time-sharing execution of wide area broadcasting and narrow area broadcasting. 1... Transmitting station, 2... Receiving section, 3... User, 4
...Transportation means, 8,9...Antenna, 21...Transmission content creation unit, 22...Database, 23,2
4... Clock, 25... Transmission content memory, 26...
Memory scanning section, 27...Broadcast time adding section, 28...
...Digital code modulator, 29...Radio transmitter,
31...Radio receiver, 32...Digital code demodulator, 33...Selector, 34...Classification code memory, 35...Selector, 36...Storage section, 37...
Scanning unit, 38...Display unit, 39...Speech rule synthesizer, 40...Speaker.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. Includes one or a plurality of transmitting stations that share a common carrier, a large number of receiving units, and a carrier that connects the transmitting station and the receiving units, and the transmitting station is capable of converting into audio. An information bundle consisting of text, which is a string of characters or symbols, a classification code indicating the content of the text, and a unique code assigned to each text, is converted into a digital signal, and is essentially converted into a digital signal by means of transport. The receiver transmits the unique code one or more times to the receiving unit, and the receiving unit collects a unique code from the received information bundle that has a pre-registered classification code and is other than the unique code of the already stored information bundle. A sound characterized in that a bundle of information is selected and stored in a storage section, and the content of the text is output as audio or visual display, or both, according to an output instruction from a user of the receiving section. Information transmission method. 2. The audio information transmission method according to claim 1, wherein the text is a sentence consisting of katakana, alphabets, numbers, kanji, phonetic symbols, accent marks, blank marks, and punctuation marks. 3. The voice information transmission method according to claim 1, wherein the text is a sentence consisting of katakana, alphanumeric characters, numbers, accent marks, blank marks, and punctuation marks. 4. The audio information transmission method according to claim 1, wherein the classification symbol is comprised of a symbol indicating that it is a classification symbol, followed by a string of a certain finite number of numbers. 5. The audio information transmission method according to claim 4, wherein the classification symbol consists of a slash "/" followed by a 10-digit number. 6. The audio information transmission method according to claim 1, wherein the unique code is comprised of a symbol indicating that it is a unique code, followed by a string of a certain finite number of numbers. 7. The audio information set forth in claim 6, wherein the unique code consists of a symbol indicating that it is a unique code, followed by a string of 10 digits representing the creation date, hour, and minute of the text. Method of communication. 8 A unique code is a 16-digit code consisting of a symbol indicating that it is a unique code, followed by a number indicating the date, month, day, hour and minute of creation of the text, a number indicating the text transmission circuit, and a number indicating the time of transmission. The audio information transmission method according to claim 6, wherein the number is . 9. The voice information transmission method according to claim 8, wherein the symbol representing the unique code is a yen symbol "\". 10. The audio information transmission method according to claim 1, wherein the conveyance means is a dedicated transmission line using electric wires, and the information bundle is conveyed as a digital signal. 11. The audio information transmission method according to claim 1, wherein the transport means is a dedicated transmission line using an optical fiber cable, and the information bundle is transported as a digital signal. 12. The audio information transmission method according to claim 1, wherein the carrier means is a radio wave, and the signal values "0" and "1" of the digital signal are expressed by modulating the carrier wave at different frequencies. 13 A wide-area transmitting station with a wide-area transmission area that shares the same frequency band and a narrow-area transmitting station with a narrow-area transmission area share the same frequency band, and the transmission time is divided and carrier means are used alternately. Claim 1
Audio information transmission method described in section.