Speech-recognition circuitry employing nonlinear processing, speech element modeling and phoneme estimation

Claim 2

A speech-recognition device for identifying a speech-element of interest in a speech signal, said device comprising: A. processing means for processing the speech signal to produce for signal segments a reduced-data representation of the speech that includes a plurality of reduced-data elements; B. a first means for calculating quantities proportional to products of certain of the reduced-data elements and power of certain of the reduced-data elements to produce a nonlinear representation of the speech that includes as elements thereof the quantities proportional to the products and powers; C. first modeling means for modeling the nonlinear representation with a group of modeling elements which include nonlinear representations characteristic of one or more speech-elements of interest in known speech, and producing a reduced-data nonlinear representation that includes a plurality of reduced-data nonlinear representation data elements; D. a second means for calculating quantities proportional to products of certain of the reduced nonlinear representation data elements and powers of certain of the reduced nonlinear representation data elements to produce a further nonlinear representation of the speech that includes as elements thereof the quantities proportional to the products and powers; E. second modeling means for modeling the further nonlinear representation with a group of modeling elements which include nonlinear representations characteristic of the speech-elements of interest in known speech, the modeling producing data which identifies the speech elements present in the speech signal.

Claim 3

The speech-recognition device of claim 1, wherein said second calculating means includes means for concatenating the reduced nonlinear representation data elements corresponding to a predetermined number of signal segments before calculating the proportional quantities.

Claim 4

The speech-recognition device of claim 1, wherein the second nonlinear calculating means includes a nonlinear receptive processor which forms products of selected data associated with the energy of the speech signal in various frequencies and selectively combines the products to produce data which relate, respectively, to changes in the signal energy signal over various frequencies and over predetermined time periods.

Claim 5

A speech-recognition device for identifying a speech-element of interest in a speech signal, said device comprising: A. processing means for processing the speech signal to produce a reduced-data representation of the speech that includes a plurality of reduced-data elements; B. a first means for calculating quantities proportional to products of certain of the reduced-data elements and powers of certain of the reduced-data elements to produce a nonlinear representation of the speech that includes as elements thereof the quantities proportional to the products and powers; C. first modeling means for modeling the nonlinear representation with a group of modeling elements which include nonlinear representation characteristic of one or more speech-elements of interest in known speech, the modeling producing a reduced-data nonlinear representation that includes a plurality of reduced-data nonlinear representative data elements; D. a second means for calculating quantities proportional to products of certain of the reduced-data nonlinear representation data elements and powers of certain of the reduced nonlinear representation data elements to produce a further nonlinear representation of the speech that includes as elements thereof the quantities proportional to the products and powers; E. second modeling means for modeling the further nonlinear representation with a group of modeling elements which include nonlinear representations characteristic of the speech-elements of interest in known speech, the modeling producing speech-element data relating to the most likely speech elements present in the speech signal; and F. means for consolidating the rearranging the speech-element data to produce a minimum speech-element representation of a word or phrase corresponding to the speech signal.

Claim 6

A speech-recognition device for identifying a speech-element of interest in a speech signal, said device comprising: A. processing means for processing the speech signal to produce a reduced-data representation of the speech that includes a plurality of reduced-data elements; B. a first means for calculating quantities proportional to products of certain of the reduced-data elements and powers of certain of the reduced-data elements to produce a nonlinear representation of the speech that includes as elements thereof the quantities proportional to the products and powers; C. first modeling means for modeling the nonlinear representation with a group of modeling elements which include nonlinear representation characteristic of one or more speech-elements of interest in known speech, the modeling producing a reduced-data nonlinear representation that includes a plurality of reduced-data nonlinear representative data elements; D. a second means for calculating quantities proportional to products of certain of the reduced-data nonlinear representation data elements and powers of certain of the reduced nonlinear representation data elements to produce a further nonlinear representation of the speech that includes as elements thereof the quantities proportional to the products and powers; E. second modeling means for modeling the further nonlinear representation with a group of modeling elements which include nonlinear representations characteristic of the speech-elements of interest in known speech, the modeling producing speech-element data relating to the most likely speech elements present in the speech signal; and F. means for consolidating the rearranging the speech-element data to produce a minimum speech-element representation of a word or phrase corresponding to the speech signal.

Claim 7

The speech-recognition device of claim 4, wherein the second nonlinear calculating means includes a nonlinear receptive processor which forms products of selected data associated with the energy of the speech signal in various frequencies and selectively combines the products to produce data which relate, respectively, to changes in the signal energy signal over various frequencies and over predetermined time periods.

Claim 8

A speech-recognition device for identifying a speech element of interest in a speech signal, said device comprising: A. means for generating a first vector each of whose components represents a component of said speech element; B. means for comparing said first vector with a first set of model vectors representing known speech elements, for each comparison deriving a value representing the degree of correlation with one of said model vectors, and generating a second vector each of whose components is one of said values; C. means for selectively calculating nonlinear combinations of components of said second vector, and generating a third vector having the resulting nonlinear combinations as components; and D. means for comparing said third vector with a second set of model vectors representing known speech elements, the comparing means producing data which identifies the most likely speech-element present in the speech signal.

Claim 9

A speech-recognition device for identifying a speech element of interest in a speech signal, said device comprising: A. means for generating a first vector each of whose components represents a component of said speech element; B. means for comparing said first vector with a first set of model vectors representing known speech elements, for each comparison deriving a value representing the degree of correlation with one of said model vectors, and generating a second vector each of whose components is one of said values; C. means for selectively calculating nonlinear combinations of components of said second vector, and generating a third vector having the resulting nonlinear combinations as components; and D. means for comparing said third vector with a second set of model vectors representing known speech elements, the comparing means producing data which identifies the most likely speech-element present in the speech signal.

Claim 10

The speech-recognition device of claim 6, wherein the second nonlinear calculating means includes a nonlinear receptive processor which forms products of selected data associated with the energy of the speech signal in various frequencies and selectively combines the products to produce data which relate, respectively, to changes in the signal energy signal over various frequencies and over predetermined time periods.

Claim 11

The speech recognition device of claim 6, wherein said second set of model vectors corresponds to a predetermined set of phoneme isotypes.

Claim 12

The speech recognition device of claim 6, wherein said first set of model vectors corresponds to a predetermined set of phonemes.