Spatially Indexed Grammar for Speech Recognition
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional speech recognition and geocoding applications face inefficiencies when users are in unfamiliar locations, as they often require ZIP codes, which are not spatially exhaustive and can lead to large, unwieldy grammar sets, negatively impacting performance.
Innovation Solution
A spatially indexed grammar system that partitions geographic areas into manageable tiles, using latitude/longitude coordinates to index and expand grammars relevant to spoken locations, ensuring efficient and accurate speech recognition.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If ZIP codes are used to index grammars, then grammar size is reduced and speech recognition efficiency is improved, but geographic coverage becomes incomplete and accuracy decreases in unfamiliar areas
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the geographic space into a hierarchical structure of tiles at multiple levels (Level 0 to Level 3), where each tile represents a manageable geographic region. This segmentation allows the system to divide the large grammar database into smaller, spatially organized subsets that can be efficiently loaded and searched, resolving the contradiction between grammar size and geographic coverage by enabling progressive refinement from coarse to fine granularity.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a spatial dimension (latitude/longitude coordinates) as an indexing mechanism alongside traditional ZIP codes. By mapping grammars to geographic coordinates and organizing them in a tile-based spatial index, the system adds a dimensional layer that enables efficient querying and expansion based on physical location, thereby improving both efficiency and adaptability simultaneously.
2Adaptability or versatility
If geographic areas are expanded to cover all regions, then complete coverage is achieved, but grammar sets become unnaturally large and speech recognition performance deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the geographic space into a hierarchical tile structure where Level 0 tiles represent large regions and Level 3 tiles represent fine-grained areas. This segmentation allows the system to load only the necessary grammar subsets for the current area of interest, preventing the need to load entire national or global grammar sets while maintaining complete geographic coverage capability through progressive expansion.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements a dynamic grammar loading mechanism that expands the active grammar set based on the user's location and search needs. Starting with a minimal Level 0 tile grammar, the system dynamically loads additional grammars from subsequent levels only when required, making the grammar set size adaptive rather than static, thus avoiding unnaturally large grammar sets while ensuring complete coverage when needed.
3Stability of the object's composition
If hierarchical geographic expansion is used to maintain area boundaries, then geographic organization is preserved, but grammar sets expand too quickly and speech recognition efficiency is lost
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the hierarchical expansion process into controlled levels (Level 0 through Level 3), where each level represents a specific granularity of geographic detail. This segmentation prevents uncontrolled grammar set expansion by limiting the depth of hierarchical exploration, thereby maintaining geographic organization through structured levels while preventing efficiency loss from loading excessive grammars.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements a controlled expansion strategy that performs partial hierarchical expansion based on search requirements. Rather than expanding to cover entire geographic boundaries, the system expands only to the necessary level and scope to resolve the current location query, using latitude/longitude coordinates to limit the expansion radius. This partial action maintains geographic organization while preventing excessive grammar set growth that would harm efficiency.
Data Source
AI summary
Improved systems and methods are described which simplify the individual's interaction with speech recognition software, expand the database of spoken point names that can be recognized, and increase the quality and therefore likelihood of success of speech recognition applications. The present systems and methods apply to various uses, such as providing driving directions, finding the nearest location based service, and finding the nearest “Where Am I?” type of location based services.