Vehicle Voice Assistant Context Sharing for Ambiguous Recommendations
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Solution Overview
Problem
The challenge in modern vehicles is that the voice assistant and recommendation engine, although separate applications, lack integration, leading to awkward interactions due to the voice assistant's lack of awareness of context created by the recommendation engine, resulting in ambiguous responses and miscommunication with occupants.
Innovation Solution
A recommendation interface is introduced to facilitate loose coupling between the voice assistant and recommendation engine, enabling the voice assistant to receive recommendation context and respond coherently to occupant utterances, thereby resolving ambiguities and aligning interactions with occupant expectations.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Device complexity
If the voice assistant and recommendation engine remain separate applications, then device complexity is reduced and ease of manufacture is improved, but interaction coherence and occupant experience deteriorate due to lack of context awareness
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a recommendation interface as an intermediary component that enables communication between the voice assistant and recommendation engine without merging them. This interface allows the voice assistant to receive recommendation context and actions, enabling coherent interactions while preserving the separate application architecture. The intermediary resolves the contradiction by providing structured data flow between independent components.
2Ease of operation
If the voice assistant receives full recommendation context, then interaction coherence improves, but information processing load and system complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts only the essential recommendation context and actions needed for coherent interaction, rather than transmitting all available data. The recommendation interface selectively provides relevant information (recommendation context and specific actions) to the voice assistant, reducing information processing load while maintaining interaction coherence. This extraction approach avoids overwhelming the system with unnecessary data.
3Loss of information
If the recommendation engine mediates all interactions, then context awareness improves, but response time and productivity decrease due to additional processing steps
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements preliminary action by having the recommendation engine prepare and transmit recommendation context and actions in advance through the recommendation interface. This allows the voice assistant to immediately access pre-processed context information when needed, rather than requiring the recommendation engine to mediate every interaction in real-time. The preliminary preparation of context data reduces response time while maintaining context awareness.
Data Source
AI summary
A method comprising causing a voice assistant and a recommendation engine that are executing in an infotainment system of a vehicle to cooperate in processing a vehicle occupant's acceptance of a recommendation proposed by the recommendation engine by having an interface to enable the recommendation engine to provide recommendation context to the voice assistant to enable the voice assistant to resolve an ambiguity in the occupant's acceptance of the recommendation.