International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation

George Vensko

Lawrence Carlin

John M Potter

Kristine N Kneib

Mark W Nelson

A Richard Smith

Allen R Smith

An apparatus and method for recognition of sentences comprised of utterances separated by short pauses, the utterances representative of both isolated words and connected words. Speech to be recognized is converted into frames of digital signals. Selected ones of the frames of digital signals are compared with isolated word and connected word templates stored in a template memory. Recognition of isolated words is done by comparing the selected frames of digital signals with the isolated word templates in accordance with a windowed dynamic programming algorithm having path boundary control, while connected word recognition is accomplished by comparing selected frames of digital signals with the connected word templates in accordance with a full DPA having path score normalization and utterance frame penalty calculation capability. Variable frame rate encoding is used to identify the selected frames of digital signals. Syntax control includes selecting the isolated word and connected word templates to be compared after each utterance and includes combining the recognized isolated words and connected words into sentences in accordance with the predefined syntax after the end of the sentence has been detected. A logical set of connected words are the connected digits.

Apparatus for automatic speech recognition

A continuous speech recognition system includes a plurality of processors doing template comparisons of speech data. Each processor has an associated memory shared with the other processors by direct memory access (DMA) through a shared data bus. The DMA circuitry is distributed between the processors to eliminate redundancy, since if each processor had a full DMA circuit, one of the circuits would be idle when the processors communicated.

Data processing apparatus and method for use in speech recognition

A dynamically programmable processing element (DPPE) is disclosed which element has the utility in a digital processing system which requires complicated arithmetic procedures to be implemented. The DPPE device is a special purpose computer which essentially has a program bus for transmitting and receiving program data from an external source. A data bus is also provided which bus can transmit or receive digital data. Coupled between the buses are input and output registers or buffers which are capable of storing transmitted or received data propagating on either of said buses. A program memory has an input coupled to said program bus and means coupling the output of the program memory to the program bus. A data memory has an addressable input means coupled to the program bus and an output coupled to the data bus. Based on the orientation of the buses and the memories, the program memory can receive program information or data from an external source and data from the data memory can be transferred to the external source. In this respect the DPPE can be reprogrammed in real time by the external source. The DPPE can also execute program instructions by fetching them from the external source as well as executing its own program instructions as stored in its program memory. The structure and format of the DPPE enables it to interface with an external source such as a microprocessor to assist and perform program instructions, as well as to perform arithmetic operations on data from the microprocessor and to communicate with the microprocessor after completion of the various routines.

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Ramona, CA, United States of America

George Vensko