Panasonic Corporation

Panasonic Intellectual Property Corporation of America

Panasonic Intellectual Property Management Co., Ltd.

Panasonic Holdings Corporation

Tsuyoki Nishikawa

Atsushi Sakaguchi

Hiroki Furukawa

Kohhei Hayashida

Takeo Kanamori

Kazuya Nomura

Misaki Tsujikawa

Aki Yoneda

Shinichi Takayama

Koichiro Mizushima

Daijiroh Ichimura

A speech translation device, for conversation between a first speaker making an utterance in a first language and a second speaker making an utterance in a second language different from the first language, includes: a speech detector that detects, from sounds that are input, a speech segment in which the first speaker or the second speaker made an utterance; a display that, after speech recognition is performed on the utterance, displays a translation result obtained by translating the utterance from the first language to the second language or from the second language to the first language; and an utterance instructor that outputs, in the second language via the display, a message prompting the second speaker to make an utterance after a first speaker's utterance or outputs, in the first language via the display, a message prompting the first speaker to make an utterance after a second speaker's utterance.

Speech translation device, speech translation method, and recording medium

A speech recognition device includes: an obtaining unit which obtains a speech uttered in a conversation between a first speaker and a second speaker; a storage which stores the speech obtained; an input unit which receives operation input; an utterance start detector which, when the input unit receives the operation input, detects a start position of the speech; and a speaker identification unit which identifies a speaker of the speech as the first speaker who has performed the operation input or the second speaker who has not performed the operation input, based on (i) first timing at which the input unit has received the operation input and (ii) second timing indicating the detected start position of the speech. The first and second timing are set for each speech of the first and second speakers. A speech recognizer performs speech recognition on the speech whose speaker has been identified.

Speech recognition device, speech recognition method, and recording medium

A speaker recognition device includes: an obtaining unit which obtains a speech uttered by a speaker included in one or more speakers; a storage which stores the speech obtained by the obtaining unit; a trigger input unit which receives a trigger; an utterance start detector which detects a start position of the speech stored in the storage, when the trigger input unit receives the trigger, the start position being a position at which utterance of the speech has started; and a speaker identification unit which identifies the speaker of the speech from the one or more speakers based on at least first timing and second timing, the first timing being timing at which the trigger input unit has received the trigger, the second timing being timing indicating the start position of the speech detected by the utterance start detector.

Speech input device, speech input method, and recording medium

A speech translation device includes: a beamformer which forms, from a speech signal obtained by a microphone array, a first beam and a second beam having different directions; a direction designator which designates one of the first beam and the second beam according to a user operation; a signal-to-noise (SN) ratio calculator which calculates an SN ratio using the designated beam as a signal component in the SN ratio, and the other beam not designated as a noise component; a display determiner which determines whether recognition of the designated beam is difficult, using the calculated SN ratio, and determines a speaking instruction for overcoming difficulty of the recognition when determining that the recognition is difficult; and a display which displays the speaking instruction determined by the display determiner in a display area.

Speech translation device, speech translation method, and recording medium therefor

A speech translation apparatus includes: an estimator which estimates a sound source direction, based on an acoustic signal obtained by a microphone array unit; a controller which identifies that an utterer is a user or a conversation partner, based on the sound source direction estimated after the start of translation is instructed by a button, using a positional relationship indicated by a layout information item stored in storage and selected in advance, and determines a translation direction indicating input and output languages in and into which content of the acoustic signal is recognized and translated, respectively; and a translator which obtains, according to the translation direction, original text indicating the content in the input language and translated text indicating the content in the output language. The controller displays the original and translated texts on first and second display areas corresponding to the positions of the user and conversation partner, respectively.

Speech translation apparatus, speech translation method, and recording medium storing the speech translation method

A method executed in a translation system includes: (A) receiving source text in a first language; (B) translating the source text into a second language to generate first translated text; (C) acquiring a determination result as to whether or not the first translated text has been correctly translated; (D) in a case where the first translated text has not been correctly translated, generating first parallel translation data that includes the source text and the first translated text; (E) transmitting the first parallel translation data to a terminal device; (F) receiving, from the terminal device, second translated text obtained by the source text being correctly translated into the second language; and (G) registering, into a parallel translation database, second parallel translation data that includes the source text and the second translated text.

Method executed in translation system and including generation of translated text and generation of parallel translation data

This information processing method includes: acquiring a first speech signal including a first utterance; acquiring a second speech signal including a second utterance; recognizing whether the speaker of the second utterance is a first speaker by comparing a feature value for the second utterance and a first speaker model; when the first speaker is recognized, performing speech recognition in a first language on the second utterance, generating text in the first language corresponding to the second utterance subjected to speech recognition in the first language, and translating the text in the first language into a second language; and, in a case where the first speaker is not recognized, performing speech recognition in the second language on the second utterance, generating text in the second language corresponding to the second utterance subjected to speech recognition in the second language, and translating the text in the second language into the first language.

Information processing method, information processing device, and recording medium having program recorded thereon

A vehicle control apparatus includes a start information acquisition unit that acquires start information including detection information about a key to a vehicle and a start instruction to start an engine, a first authentication unit that acquires, in accordance with the start information, sensing information about a user detected by a sensor of the vehicle and information about a preregistered user corresponding to the sensing information and authenticates whether the detected user is the preregistered user, a second authentication unit that acquires, in accordance with the start information, authentication information input by the user and preregistered authentication information corresponding to the authentication information and authenticates whether the input authentication information is the same as the preregistered authentication information, and a control information output unit that outputs control information regarding start of the engine based on at least one of the authentication results received from the first and second authentication units.

Vehicle control apparatus, vehicle control method, and recording medium storing program

A speech recognition method acquires sound information via multiple microphones, detects a sound source interval including sound from the sound information, acquires an estimated direction of speech by conducting direction estimation on a speech interval from among the sound source interval, conducts an adaptation process of using the sound information to estimate filter coefficients, decides a buffer size of the sound information to hold in a buffer, based on sound source interval information, estimated direction information, and adaptation process convergence state information, holds the sound information in the buffer according to the buffer size, conducts a beamforming process using the sound information held in the buffer and the filter coefficients to acquire speech information, and conducts speech recognition on the speech information acquired by the beamforming process. The method decides the buffer size to be a size sufficient for convergence of the adaptation process immediately after sound information processing starts.

Speech recognition method, speech recognition apparatus, and non-transitory computer-readable recording medium storing a program

A noise reduction device includes an acoustic characteristic determination unit, a microphone pair selection unit, and a noise reduction unit. The acoustic characteristic determination unit determines, using one of microphone pair signals obtained from a plurality of microphone pairs, whether acoustic characteristics of each of the plurality of microphone pairs satisfy a certain requirement. The microphone pair selection unit selects, from among the plurality of microphone pairs, a target microphone pair whose acoustic characteristics have been determined to satisfy the certain requirement. The noise reduction unit reduces, using a microphone pair signal obtained from the target microphone pair, noise included in an input signal obtained from at least one of microphone signals output from a plurality of microphones.

Noise reduction device and method for reducing noise

A sound collecting apparatus capable of effectively suppressing sounds other than a target sound is provided. The sound collecting apparatus includes a plurality of microphones. A total number of effective microphone pairs in which a distance between two microphones is smaller than a distance D is larger than a total number of the plurality of microphones. The distance D is represented by D=c/2f, where the frequency of the target sound acquired from each of the plurality of microphones is f and sound velocity is c. When an angle formed by a straight line connecting two microphones configuring an effective microphone pair and a predetermined straight line is &#x3b8;, the angles &#x3b8; of all effective microphone pairs acquired from the plurality of microphones are different from each other.

Sound collecting apparatus

In a speech recognition method, a criteria value is determined to determine the length of a silent section included in a processing section, and a processing mode to use is determined in accordance with the criteria value. The criteria value is used to obtain audio information of the processing section. Audio processing is executed on the audio information in the processing section, using the processing mode that has been determined. Speech recognition processing is executed on the audio information in the processing section that has been subjected to audio processing.

Speech recognition method and speech recognition apparatus to improve performance or response of speech recognition

A terminal is provided that includes a speech acquisition unit that acquires first speech information, and a first speech processor that removes noise contained in the first speech information using a first removal method and outputs the noise-removed speech information as second speech information. The terminal also includes a first speech recognition unit that performs speech recognition on the second speech information and outputs the speech recognition result as first speech recognition result information. The terminal further includes a communication unit that receives a speech recognition result as second speech recognition result information from a server, and a determination unit that makes a selection as to which of the first speech recognition result information and the second speech recognition result information should be outputted.

Speech recognition device and method

A configuration method for a sound collection system for a meeting using a plurality of terminals, the system obtaining speech from the terminals. The method includes: receiving external sounds from the respective terminals as collected-sound data, the external sounds being collected by the respective terminals; and determining a meeting to which each of the terminals belongs, in accordance with a degree of similarity between the collected-sound data. At least one of the receiving the collected-sound data and the determining the meeting is performed by a processor.

Configuration method for sound collection system for meeting using terminals and server apparatus

A speech recognition method is provided that recognizes speech for causing equipment to operate. The method includes acquiring a speech signal from a microphone disposed in a designated space. The method also includes detecting a spatial sound pressure distribution indicating a distribution of sound pressure in the space, on the basis of the acquired speech signal, and detecting a point sound source in the space on the basis of the detected spatial sound pressure distribution. The method further includes judging to conduct a speech recognition process on the acquired speech signal when the point sound source is detected.

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Osaka, Japan

Tsuyoki Nishikawa