Electronic device and controlling method thereof

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10645168-B2
Application number	US-201715800722-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 1, 2017
Priority date	Nov 1, 2016
Publication date	May 5, 2020
Grant date	May 5, 2020

Abstract

An electronic device is provided. The electronic device includes a memory, a transceiver that communicates with at least one external device, and at least one processor that is electrically connected with the memory and the communication module. The at least one processor is configured to receive an utterance place candidate group and a command for controlling a peripheral device associated with an utterance place from at least one or more other electronic devices by using the transceiver and to store the received utterance place candidate group and the received command in the memory, to select at least one utterance place based on the received utterance place candidate group, and to transmit, to a peripheral device associated with the selected utterance place, a command for controlling the peripheral device.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An electronic device comprising:
a memory;
a transceiver configured to communicate with at least one external device; and
at least one processor electrically connected with the memory and the transceiver,
wherein the at least one processor is configured to:
receive a command for controlling at least one peripheral device based on a user's utterance from a user device,
receive, from other electronic devices, utterance place candidate groups, wherein each of the utterance place candidate groups includes at least one candidate utterance place selected by one of the other electronic devices based on the command,
store the received utterance place candidate groups and the received command in the memory,
determine a most frequent utterance place in the received utterance place candidate groups as an utterance place based on the received utterance place candidate groups, and
transmit, to the at least one peripheral device associated with the determined utterance place, the command.

2. The electronic device of claim 1 , wherein, if two or more most frequent utterance places are existing in the utterance place candidate groups, the at least one processor is further configured to transmit a list of the two or more most frequent utterance places to the user device and selects the utterance place among the two or more most frequent utterance places based on a signal received from the user device.

3. The electronic device of claim 1 , wherein, based on receiving; from the user device, first data including reception time information indicating a time of an utterance from a user, data obtained by converting the utterance to data in a character form, and location information of the user device at the reception of the utterance, the at least one processor is further configured to generate a lookup table including:
the utterance place,
a peripheral device associated with the utterance place,
an arrival time between a time when the user device receives the utterance and a time when the electronic device receives the first data, and
a strength of a signal including the first data based on the utterance place.

4. The electronic device of claim 3 , wherein, based on receiving, from the user device, the command included in second data including the reception time information indicating the time of the reception of the utterance from the user and the command obtained by converting the utterance to the data in a character form, the at least one processor is further configured to obtain the arrival time from the time when the user device receives the utterance to the time when the electronic device receives the second data.

5. The electronic device of claim 4 , wherein the first data and the second data are generated by which the user device:
recognizes the utterance of the user based on a voice recognition algorithm, and
converts the recognized utterance to the data of the character form.

6. The electronic device of claim 4 , wherein, if the second data further includes the location information of the user device at the point in time to receive the utterance, the at least one processor is further configured to:
change the second data to the first data, and
update the lookup table including the utterance place, the peripheral device associated with the utterance place, the arrival time from the time when the user device receives the utterance to the time when the electronic device receives the first data, and the strength of the signal including the first data based on the utterance place.

7. The electronic device of claim 4 , wherein the at least one processor is further configured to select the utterance place candidate where the second data are generated, based on the arrival time from the time when the user device receives the utterance to the time when the electronic device receives the second data and the lookup table.

8. The electronic device of claim 3 , wherein the user device is configured to:
recognize voice of the user,
convert the recognized voice to the data of the character form, and
obtain the location information of the user device at the point in time to receive the utterance based on a phrase included in the converted character data.

9. The electronic device of claim 1 ,
wherein the electronic device functions as a master hub, and
wherein the at least one or more other electronic device functions as at least one of a slave hub or the user device.

10. A method for controlling an electronic device, the method comprising:
receiving command for controlling at least one peripheral device based on a utterance from a user device;
receiving, from other electronic device, utterance place candidate groups, wherein each of the utterance candidate groups includes at least one candidate utterance place selected by one of the other electronic devices based on the command;
determining a most frequent place among the received utterance place candidate groups as an utterance place; and
transmitting, to at least one peripheral device associated with the determined utterance place, the command.

11. The method of claim 10 , further comprising:
when two or more most frequent utterance places are existing in the utterance place candidate groups, transmitting a list of the plurality of utterance places to the user device and selecting the utterance place among the two or more most frequent utterance places based on a signal received from the user device.

12. The method of claim 10 , further comprising:
based on receiving, from the user device, first data including reception time information indicating a time of reception of the utterance from a user, second data obtained by converting the utterance to the second data in a character form, and location information of the user device at a time of the reception of the utterance, generating a lookup table including:
the utterance place,
a peripheral device associated with the utterance place,
an arrival time from the time when the user device receives the utterance and a time when the electronic device receives the first data, and
a strength of a signal including the first data based on the utterance place.

13. The method of claim 12 , further comprising:
based on receiving, from the user device, the second data, obtaining the arrival time from the time when the user device receives the utterance to the time when the electronic device receives the second data.

14. The method of claim 13 , wherein the first data and the second data are generated by which the user device recognizes the utterance of the user based on a voice recognition algorithm and converts the recognized utterance to the second data in the character form.

15. The method of claim 13 , further comprising:
if the second data further includes the location information of the user device at the time of reception of the utterance,
changing the second data to the first data; and
updating the lookup table including the utterance place, the peripheral device associated with the utterance place, the arrival time from the time when the user device receives the utterance to the time when the electronic device receives the first data, and the strength of the signal including the first data based on the utterance place.

16. The method of claim 13 , further comprising:
selecting the utterance place candidate where the second data are generated, based on the arrival time from the time when the user device receives the utterance to the time when the electronic device receives the second data and the lookup table.

17. The method of

Assignees

• Samsung Electronics Co Ltd

Inventors

• Choi Pil Sik

Classifications

• H04L67/12 Primary

  specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks · CPC title

• H04L12/282

  based on user interaction within the home (receiver circuitry for displaying additional information being controlled by a remote control apparatus H04N21/42204) · CPC title

• G10L15/22

  Procedures used during a speech recognition process, e.g. man-machine dialogue · CPC title

• G06F3/167

  Audio in a user interface, e.g. using voice commands for navigating, audio feedback · CPC title

• G10L2015/223

  Execution procedure of a spoken command · CPC title