Google Inc.

Waymo LLC

Michael Buchanan

Pravir Kumar Gupta

Christopher Bo Tandiono

Mark Andrew Paskin

Siddhi Tadpatrikar

Petar Aleksic

Glen Shires

Trystan G Upstill

Colin Andrew Braley

Ishai Rabinovitz

David Yonchar Margines

Nathan David Howard

Aleksandar Gabrovski

Surabhi Gupta

Methods, systems, and apparatus for generation and use of surfel maps to plan for occlusions. One of the methods includes receiving a previously-generated surfel map depicting an area in which a vehicle is located, the surfel map comprising a plurality of surfels, each surfel corresponding to a respective different location in the area in which a vehicle is located; receiving, from one or more sensors, sensor data representing the area in which the vehicle is located; determining, based on the sensor data, that the area in which a vehicle is located includes a dynamic object having a changed shape relative to its representation in the surfel map; and generating an updated path for the vehicle to travel that avoids an occlusion by the changed shape of the dynamic object of a line of sight of one or more sensors to an area of interest.

Planning for occlusions with surfel maps

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for speech endpointing based on word comparisons are described. In one aspect, a method includes the actions of obtaining a transcription of an utterance. The actions further include determining, as a first value, a quantity of text samples in a collection of text samples that (i) include terms that match the transcription, and (ii) do not include any additional terms. The actions further include determining, as a second value, a quantity of text samples in the collection of text samples that (i) include terms that match the transcription, and (ii) include one or more additional terms. The actions further include classifying the utterance as a likely incomplete utterance or not a likely incomplete utterance based at least on comparing the first value and the second value.

Speech endpointing based on word comparisons

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for speech endpointing are described. In one aspect, a method includes the action of accessing voice query log data that includes voice queries spoken by a particular user. The actions further include based on the voice query log data that includes voice queries spoken by a particular user, determining a pause threshold from the voice query log data that includes voice queries spoken by the particular user. The actions further include receiving, from the particular user, an utterance. The actions further include determining that the particular user has stopped speaking for at least a period of time equal to the pause threshold. The actions further include based on determining that the particular user has stopped speaking for at least a period of time equal to the pause threshold, processing the utterance as a voice query.

Speech endpointing

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for receiving audio data including an utterance, obtaining context data that indicates one or more expected speech recognition results, determining an expected speech recognition result based on the context data, receiving an intermediate speech recognition result generated by a speech recognition engine, comparing the intermediate speech recognition result to the expected speech recognition result for the audio data based on the context data, determining whether the intermediate speech recognition result corresponds to the expected speech recognition result for the audio data based on the context data, and setting an end of speech condition and providing a final speech recognition result in response to determining the intermediate speech recognition result matches the expected speech recognition result, the final speech recognition result including the one or more expected speech recognition results indicated by the context data.

Enhanced speech endpointing

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for receiving audio data encoding an utterance; obtaining an intermediate transcription of the utterance; before a final transcription of the utterance is obtained: i) determining that the intermediate transcription of the utterance is associated with a previously received search query, ii) obtaining one or more results that are identified as responsive to the previously received search query, and iii) storing one or more of the results; obtaining the final transcription of the utterance; determining that the final transcription of the utterance is also associated with the previously received search query; and in response to determining that the final transcription of the utterance is also associated with the previously received search query, providing the stored one or more results for output.

Search result prefetching of voice queries

The specification relates to a method of receiving a first query and a second query. The method analyzes the second query for a presence of anaphora. If anaphora is present, the method analyzes the first query for a presence of an entity that can be associated with the anaphora. If the analysis analyzing the first query returns two or more associated entities, the method forms a third query wherein the anaphora of the second query is replaced with one of the associated entities and forms a fourth query wherein the anaphora is replaced with the other of the associated entities. The third query and the fourth query are sent to a query-ranking engine. The third query and the fourth query receive a ranking and the higher-ranked query is sent to a search engine.

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Mountain View, CA, United States of America

Michael Buchanan