Audio quality of speech in sound systems

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11151981-B2
Application number	US-201916598621-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 10, 2019
Priority date	Oct 10, 2019
Publication date	Oct 19, 2021
Grant date	Oct 19, 2021

Abstract

A computer implemented method, apparatus, and computer program product for a sound system. Speech recognition is performed on input audio data comprising speech input to a sound system. Speech recognition is additionally performed on at least one instance of output audio data comprising speech reproduced by one or more audio speakers of the sound system. A difference between a result of speech recognition performed on the input audio data and a result of speech recognition performed on an instance of corresponding output audio data is determined. The quality of the reproduced speech is determined as unsatisfactory when the difference is greater than or equal to a threshold. A corrective action may be performed, to improve the quality of the speech reproduced by the sound system, if it is determined that the speech quality of the reproduced sound is unsatisfactory.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A computer implemented method comprising:
performing speech recognition on input audio data comprising speech input to a sound system;
performing speech recognition on at least one instance of output audio data comprising reproduced speech by one or more audio speakers of the sound system;
determining a difference between a result of the speech recognition on the input audio data and a result of the speech recognition on the at least one instance of the output audio data;
determining that quality of the reproduced speech is unsatisfactory when the difference is greater than or equal to a threshold; and
wherein parameters in one or more parameter adjustments are selected from a group consisting of: audio gain and audio channel equalization for each frequency band of a component of the sound system.

2. The computer implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the difference comprises a quantitative value calculated from the result of the speech recognition on the input audio data for a sample of input speech and the result of the speech recognition on the output audio data for a sample of the reproduced speech corresponding to the sample of the input speech.

3. The computer implemented method of claim 1 , wherein determining the difference between the result of the speech recognition on the input audio data and the result of the speech recognition on the at least one instance of the output audio data comprises:
comparing text of a transcript of the speech recognition on the input audio data with text of a transcript of the speech recognition on the at least one instance of the output audio data; and
determining a quantitative value for the difference selected from a group consisting of: number of characters that are different, number of words that are different, and percentage of characters or words that are different.

4. The computer implemented method of claim 1 , wherein determining the difference between the result of the speech recognition on the input audio data and the result of the speech recognition on the at least one instance of the output audio data comprises:
comparing a first confidence level determined by the speech recognition on the input audio data with a second confidence level determined by the speech recognition on the at least one instance of the output audio data, the first confidence level comprising a value of a confidence measure indicating reliability of the speech recognition on the input audio data, the second confidence level comprising a value of a confidence measure indicating reliability of the speech recognition the at least one instance of the output audio data; and
determining a difference between the first confidence level and the second confidence level.

5. The computer implemented method of claim 1 , further comprising:
performing the one or more parameter adjustments of the sound system to improve the quality of the reproduced speech, in response to determining that the quality of the reproduced speech is unsatisfactory.

6. The computer implemented method of claim 5 , wherein performing the one or more parameter adjustments of the sound system comprises:
performing a first parameter adjustment comprising adjusting a parameter of the sound system by a defined increment or to a target value; and
in response to determining that the quality of the reproduced speech is still unsatisfactory, performing a further parameter adjustment until a predefined condition is met.

7. The computer implemented method of claim 6 , wherein the predefined condition is selected from a group consisting of: the quality of the reproduced speech is satisfactory, the quality of the reproduced speech is maximized, a predefined set of parameter adjustments have been performed, the predefined set of parameter adjustments have been performed in accordance with an intelligent parameter adjustment scheme, the predefined set of parameter adjustments have been adjusted according to an optimization model, and a timer expires.

8. The computer implemented method of claim 5 , further comprising:
determining an impact of a parameter adjustment on the quality of the reproduced speech based on the difference between the result of the speech recognition on the input audio data and the result of the speech recognition on the at least one instance of the output audio data, the input audio data and the output audio data comprising input speech and the reproduced speech after the parameter adjustment, and
storing relationship information comprising a parameter and increment corresponding to the parameter adjustment and the impact on the quality of the reproduced speech, for use as feedback to an intelligent parameter adjustment selection scheme or a machine learning model for optimizing the quality of the reproduced speech.

9. The computer implemented method of claim 1 , further comprising:
determining whether quality of an speech input to the sound system is acceptable, and
in response to determining that the quality of the speech input to the sound system is not acceptable, sending a message to a user to make changes relating to the speech input to the sound system.

10. An apparatus comprising:
a processor and data storage, wherein the processor is configured to:
perform speech recognition on input audio data comprising speech input to a sound system;
perform speech recognition on at least one instance of output audio data comprising reproduced speech by one or more audio speakers of the sound system;
determine a difference between a result of the speech recognition on the input audio data and a result of the speech recognition on the at least one instance of the output audio data;
determine that quality of the reproduced speech is unsatisfactory when the difference is greater than or equal to a threshold; and
wherein parameters in one or more parameter adjustments are selected from a group consisting of: audio gain, and audio channel equalization for each frequency band of a component of the sound system.

11. The apparatus of claim 10 , wherein the difference comprises a quantitative value calculated from the result of the speech recognition on the input audio data for a sample of input speech and the result of the speech recognition on the output audio data for a sample of the reproduced speech corresponding to the sample of the input speech.

12. The apparatus of claim 10 , wherein the processor is configured to determine the difference between the result of the speech recognition on the input audio data and the result of the speech recognition on the at least one instance of the output audio data by:
comparing text of a transcript of the speech recognition on the input audio data with text of a transcript of the speech recognition on the at least one instance of the output audio data; and
determining a quantitative value for the difference selected from a group consisting of: number of characters that are different, number of words that are different, and percentage of characters or words that are different.

13. The apparatus of claim 12 , wherein the processor is configured to perform the one or more parameter adjustments of the sound system by:
performing a first parameter adjustment comprising adjusting a parameter of the sound system by a defined increment or to a target value; and
in response to determining that the quality of the reproduced speech is still unsatisfactory, performing a further parameter adjustment until a predefined condition is met.

14. The apparatus of claim 13 , wherein the predefined condition is selected from a group consisting of: the quality of the reproduced speech

Assignees

• IBM

Inventors

• Naylor-Teece Alexander John
• Dunnings Andrew James
• Masters Oliver Paul

Classifications

• H04R29/001

  for loudspeakers (H04R29/007 takes precedence) · CPC title

• H03G5/165

  Equalizers; Volume or gain control in limited frequency bands · CPC title

• H03G3/3005

  in amplifiers suitable for low-frequencies, e.g. audio amplifiers (H03G3/32, H03G3/34 take precedence) · CPC title

• G10L25/69

  for evaluating synthetic or decoded voice signals · CPC title

• G10L21/0364 Primary

  for improving intelligibility · CPC title