Abstract:
A system and method for providing captioned services comprising a relay, an assisted user&#39;s captioned device including a processor programmed to perform the steps of establishing a first communication link between the captioned device and a hearing person&#39;s device, receiving voice signals from the hearing person via the first communication link, receive an indication that an activator has been activated to invoke a captioning service and in response transmitting the hearing user&#39;s voice signals received at the captioned device to a relay via a second communication link, receiving text back corresponding to the hearing user&#39;s voice signals from the relay and displaying the text wherein the assisted user can invoke the captioning service either prior to or after the first communication link is established.

Description:
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS 
       [0001]    This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/486,205 filed on Jun. 1, 2012 which is titled “System For Text Assisted Telephony” which is a continuation of U.S. Pat. No. 8,213,578 filed Dec. 13, 2007, which is a continuation of U.S. Pat. No. 7,319,740 filed Oct. 25, 2005, which is a continuation of application Ser. No. 10/634,965 filed Aug. 5, 2003, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,003,082, which is a continuation of application Ser. No. 09/938,194 filed on Aug. 23, 2001, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,603,835. 
     
    
     STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT 
       [0002]    Not applicable. 
       BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
       [0003]    The present invention relates to the general field of telephone communications. In more particular, the invention relates to systems to assist telephone communications by those persons who are deaf, hard of hearing, or otherwise have impaired hearing capability. 
         [0004]    Most modern human communications in both social and business environments takes place through sound communications. Yet within modern society there are many persons who have attenuated hearing capability. To assist those persons in making use of our telephonic communication system built for the hearing majority, there has been developed a system of telephone communication which has been principally used by the deaf community. That system makes use of a category of device known variously as a telecommunication device for the deaf (TDD), text telephone (TT) or teletype (TTY). Current TDDs are electronic devices consisting of a key board and a display as well as a specific type of modem, to acoustically or directly couple to the telephone line. Modern TDDs permit the user to type characters into their keyboard, with the character strings then encoded and transmitted over the telephone line to be displayed on the display of a communicating or remote TDD device. 
         [0005]    Most TDD communication is conducted in an idiosyncratic code specific to the community of TDD users. This code, known as Baudot, evolved historically at a time when many telecommunication devices for the deaf were based on mechanical or electromechanical devices rather than the current technology based on digital electronic components. Accordingly, the Baudot protocol was constructed for a set of constraints which are no longer relevant to present date devices. The original Baudot protocol was a unidirectional or simplex system of communication conducted at 45.5 Baud. The conventional Baudot character set was a character set consisting of 5 bit characters and the system encodes the bits of those characters in a two-tonal system based on carrier tones of 1400 and 1800 Hertz. 
         [0006]    The system of TDD communications is widely used and in fact has become indispensable to the deaf community throughout the industrialized world. Deaf persons extensively communicate with their neighbors and with other deaf and hearing people remotely, using the TDD system. In addition, systems have been developed to facilitate the exchange of communication between the deaf community and hearing users who do not have access to or utilize a TDD device. In the United States, telephone companies have set up a service referred to as a “relay.” A relay, as the term is used herein, refers to a system of voice to TDD communication in which an operator, referred to as a “call assistant, ” serves as a human intermediary between a hearing user and a deaf person. Normally the call assistant wears a headset that communicates by voice with the hearing user and also has access to a TDD device which can communicate to the deaf user using a TDD appropriate protocol. In normal relay operations in the prior art, the call assistant types at a TDD keyboard the words which are voiced to her by the hearing user and then voices to the hearing user the words that the call assistant sees upon the display of his or her TDD. The call assistant serves, in essence, as an interpreting intermediary between the deaf person and the hearing person to translate from voice to digital electronic forms of communication. 
         [0007]    A system to assist users of the telephone system who are hard of hearing but not deaf has been described. This system, sometimes referred to as text enhanced telephony, makes use of the existence of relays to supplement telephone communications for users who can hear, but have attenuated hearing capabilities. This systems includes, in its simplest embodiment, a visually readable display connected in series between the telephone used by the assisted user and the connection to the telephone network. The text enhanced telephone call is connected through a relay which transmits both the voice of the hearing user at the other end and a text stream of the words spoken by that user on the same telephone line. The details of the concept and of some embodiments of that system are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,075,842, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference. 
       BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
       [0008]    The present invention is summarized in that a relay system to facilitate the translation of information and communication between deaf and hearing persons includes a call assistant who re-voices the words of the hearing person which are spoken to the call assistant. The words spoken by the call assistant are recognized by a speech recognition computer program which has been trained to the voice pattern of the call assistant, such that the words are promptly translated into a high speed digital communication protocol. That high speed digital communication message is then transmitted electronically promptly by telephone to a visual display accessible to the deaf person. 
         [0009]    It is an advantage of the invention described herein that the call assistant does not have to type most, if any, of the words spoken by the hearing person in the communication session so that the overall speed of communications from the hearing person to the deaf person is dramatically increased. 
         [0010]    It is an object of the present invention that the design and utilization of a relay operated in accordance with the protocols described herein permits the introduction of small hand-held personal interpreter which will enable on the spot communications between deaf persons and hearing persons wherever the deaf persons might go. 
         [0011]    Other objects, advantages and features of the present invention will become apparent from the following specification when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. 
     
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWINGS 
         [0012]      FIG. 1  is a schematic block diagram of a re-voicing relay. 
           [0013]      FIG. 2  is an exterior view of a personal interpreter enabled by the relay of  FIG. 1 . 
           [0014]      FIG. 3  is a schematic block diagram of the personal interpreter of  FIG. 2 . 
           [0015]      FIG. 4  illustrates the operation of a captioned telephone service supported by a relay. 
           [0016]      FIG. 5  is a schematic illustration of the concept of the two wire captioned telephone device connection with sound inter-connection. 
           [0017]      FIG. 6  is a schematic illustration of the connection of a personal interpreter/captioned telephone device connected to two telephone lines. 
       
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
       [0018]    The present invention is intended to provide an alternative arrangement for the delivery of text assisted telephone services, also called captioned telephone, to a telephone system user with diminished hearing. The present system is intended to take advantage of two developments in the field of assisted telephone services, the personal interpreter and the re-voicing relay. The arrangement for using these capabilities here is designed not to provide text services for the profoundly deaf, but to provide a text assistance service for those who can hear, but who may have diminished hearing. This service is designed to supplement rather than replace the transmission of the spoken voice word to the assisted user. To assist understanding what is contemplated here, the basic technologies of the personal interpreter and the re-voicing relay will be described here first, after which the description will return to the main topic, text assisted telephone services or, as they are also known, captioned telephone services. 
         [0019]    The personal interpreter is intended to be a small portable device capable of delivering, with the support of a relay, text to a deaf user of any human conversation occurring in the presence of the personal interpreter. The personal interpreter is set up to connect telephonically to a relay, transmit spoken words to the relay, and then display for the assisted user the text of the words transmitted over the telephone connection to the relay. To make the personal interpreter work more seamlessly to produce more conversation-like communication, a faster relay methodology was needed. To fill this need, the re-voicing relay was designed. 
         [0020]    The re-voicing relay is based upon the underlying technology of using voice recognition software, operated by a call assistant (a “CA”), to assist in the voice to text translation inherent in providing relay services. The re-voicing strategy is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,909,482, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference. The re-voicing relay has its first implementation in providing voice to text transcription services for the deaf. However, the relay voice to text transcription service has use for users other than those who are deaf. It is envisioned that there are a number of hearing or partially hearing users who would have reason to benefit from voice to text transcription services. Relay voice to text service might also be useful for any application in which it is desired to supplement voice communications by a text transcription of the voice spoken on the telephone. Thus, while the operation of the relay will sometimes be described here by referring to an “assisted user,” who may be deaf or hard of hearing, but who also may be a normally hearing person who simply wants text assistance for some reason. The user at the other end of the line will be referred to here as the hearing user, simply for the purpose of having something to call that person, even though both users may be hearing. 
       Personal Interpreter 
       [0021]    Shown in  FIG. 2  is an illustration of what a personal interpreter  10  can look like. This would be a small hand held device typically the size of a small hardbound book. It would have a keyboard of minimal size, but useable by a deaf person who can type. It would have a two or four line display, but the display could be any size that conveniently fits in the case of the device. The device would also have a key or switch which would initiate its operation. 
         [0022]    Shown in  FIG. 2  is a schematic block diagram of the internal mechanics of the personal interpreter. The personal interpreter keyboard shown at  12  and its display as shown at  14 . Inside the interpreter itself is a microprocessor shown at  16 . Not shown, but included within the personal interpreter, would be the appropriate memory and interface devices so as to allow the microprocessor to be programmed and to operate the personal interpreter and perform its functions, in a manner well known in the art. Also inside of the personal interpreter is a modem  18 . The modem  18  is preferably a modem specifically designed for interface with the deaf telecommunications system. Most telecommunications with the deaf community are conducted using a Baudot type code. One useful alternative is for the modem be designed to use the enhanced form of Baudot communication known as “Turbo Code” (Ultratec), which is generally described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,432,837, 5,517,548, and 5,327,479, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference. Another alternative is that the modem use a new variant of Turbo Code, one which uses higher carrier frequencies (in the range of 3000-3500 hertz) and a faster baud rate (over 100 baud). The most preferred alternative is for the modem to use a digital communication protocol which can both transmit and receive digital packets which contain either or both of voice and text. The output of the modem is preferably wired to a cellular telephone  20  included within the case of the personal interpreter  10 . The cellular telephone  20  has a suitable antenna provided on it so that it may dial a cellular telephone network by radio frequency communications of the type normally conducted by cellular telephones. The personal interpreter also includes jack  28  to connect to a conventional wired or land-line telephone line as well. The personal interpreter also includes a microphone  22  and a speaker  24 . A filter  26  connects the speaker  24  and the microphone  22  to the telephone  20 . 
         [0023]    A brief description of the operation and functionality of the personal interpreter reveals the dramatic improvement and convenience and portability that this device gives to text assisted people. A assisted user could go into an establishment, be it a government office or retail facility, in which there are only hearing persons. The assisted person would carry with him or her the personal interpreter  10 . The assisted user would then place the personal interpreter  10  upon a counter or other surface, open it up, and press the initiation key or start button. The microprocessor  16  and modem  18  of the personal interpreter then power up and act in many ways like a normal TDD device operating in telecommunication standard, such as Turbo code. However, there is one critical difference. The start or initiation key further causes the microprocessor  16  of the personal interpreter to dial a relay to set up a relay communication session and includes in its communication with the relay a message, using the enhanced command features available in advanced telecommunication protocols, such as Turbo Code, to initiate a special format of relay call adapted for the personal interpreter. Other codes which permit command functions, such as ASCII or CCITT, could also be used. The first operation is to activate the cellular telephone and direct the cellular telephone to dial the number of a relay operating in accordance with the method of the present invention. The cellular telephone dials the relay. Obviously, no wired connection is required to allow the cellular telephone function to establish a telephone connection with the remote relay, but alternatively the jack  28  to a conventional telephone line could be used. In addition, when the relay answers the telephone connection, the microprocessor  16  of the personal interpreter  10  is instructed to provide command codes to the remote relay. These command codes, a feature possible through the use of Turbo Code, permits the personal interpreter to tell the relay that this is a personal interpreter-type relay communication session. All of this can happen in the time necessary to initiate the cellular call, perhaps two to ten seconds. 
         [0024]    Then, the assisted person can use the personal interpreter to translate words spoken by hearing persons in the presence of the personal interpreter into visually readable text. This is done by the personal interpreter  10  through an unseen relay. Words spoken by the hearing persons in the presence of the personal interpreter  10  are picked up by the microphone  22 . Those words are then transmitted through the cellular telephone  20  to the remote relay. The relay, operating as will be described below, then immediately transmits back, in enhanced Turbo Code, a digital communication stream translating the words that were just spoken. The words are received by the modem  18 , and the microprocessor  16  in the personal interpreter  10 , and it is displayed promptly upon the display screen  14 . If the assisted person can speak, he or she may then answer the hearing person with a spoken voice, or, the assisted person may alternatively type upon the keyboard  12 . If the assisted user types on the keyboard  12 , the personal interpreter transmits the communication by digital communication to the relay. The call assistant at the relay then reads and speaks the words typed by the assisted user which are transmitted to the speaker  22  contained in the personal interpreter into a voice communication which can be understood by the hearing users. The filter  26  filters out the digital communication frequencies from the sound generated by the speaker  22 . Thus, in essence, the assisted person has a personal interpreter available to him or her at all times of the day or night wherever the assisted person is within the range of the cellular telephone system. Also, because the relay is preferably operating in accordance with the fast translation methodology described below, a very conversation-like feel can occur in the communication session between the assisted user and the hearing persons in the presence of the personal interpreter  10 . In order for this communication session to be satisfactory to the hearing users as well as the assisted person, however, the relay must operate exceedingly rapidly. It is, in part, to meet the need for the exceeding rapidity of this conversational style of communication that the re-voicing relay protocol has been designed. 
       Re-Voicing Relay 
       [0025]    Shown in  FIG. 1  is a relay intended to provide the voice to text capability to support the personal interpreter, and which can also support other voice to text services to provide services for assisted users.  FIG. 1  is intended to show, in schematic fashion, how such a relay system can be set up. Shown at  32  is a telephone of a hearing person. Instead of a telephone of a hearing person, the input could also be the microphone of the personal interpreter  10  shown in  FIGS. 2 and 3 . The telephone of the hearing person  32  is connected through a telephone line  34  to a voice input buffer  36  at the relay. The telephone line  34  can be an actual physical land line, or two pair between the telephones, or can be a cellular or other over-the-air telephone linkage. The voice input buffer  36  is a simple buffer to ensure temporary capture of the voice in the event that the call assistant gets behind and needs to buffer or delay the voice of the hearing person. In any event, the output of the input voice buffer  36  is provided to a headset  40  where earphones  38  produce the sound of the remote speaking person in the ear of the call assistant. The call assistant is wearing the headset  40  and sitting at a computer  42  capable of communicating in an enhanced Baudot communication, such as Turbo Code or whatever other code protocol is being used. However, typically the call assistant does not type the words which the call assistant hears in his or her earphone  38 . Instead, the call assistant then speaks the words which he or she hears in the earphones  38  into a microphone  39  in the headset  40 . The microphone  39  on the headset  40  is connected to transmit the voice of the call assistant to the computer  42  at which the call assistant sits. 
       Captioned Telephone 
       [0026]    As mentioned earlier, captioned telephone is a technology intended to provide text assistance to assisted user during the course of a voice telephone communication session. As will become apparent from the discussion below, a captioned telephone connection can be a single line connection or a multiple line connection. There are advantages and disadvantages of each approach. A single line connection is known in the art, as exemplified by U.S. Pat. No. 6,075,842, mentioned previously. The advantages and details of the use of a multiple line connection are described below. The discussion of captioned telephone will begin with a single line connection. 
         [0027]    Shown in  FIG. 4  is an illustration of how a typical telephone call involving a single line captioned telephone would be set up. The hearing user at telephone  62  communicates through a telephone line  64  with the relay, indicated at  66 . The relay, a re-voicing relay, communicates through a telephone line  68  with the assisted user. At the site of the assisted user is a telephone  70  used by the assisted user and also a captioned telephone device  72 . The telephone  70  is conventional. The captioned telephone device  72  is constructed to accomplish two objectives. One objective is to filter, or separate, the digital signals carrying the text information from the voice signal. The other objective is to take the digital signals and create a visual display of the text information for the assisted user. This device is thus intended to assist the user to understand a greater portion of the conversation by providing a visually readable transcription of the text of the telephone conversation so that the assisted user can read any words that he or she cannot hear properly. While the captioned telephone device  72  of  FIG. 4  is illustrated as a separate stand-alone device from the telephone  70 , those of skill in the art can readily appreciate that the two functions can be combined in a special capability telephone station. Such a special purpose station can both provide conventional telephone service and also include a display which can be used to provide captioning for an assisted user. 
         [0028]    The two line captioned telephone is indicated in  FIG. 5 . In its simplest embodiment, the two-line captioned telephone can be conceptually thought of as a personal interpreter used to provide text assistance to a telephone user. Thus in  FIG. 5 , the telephone of the hearing user  62  and the telephone of the assisted user  70  are connected directly by a simple single telephone connection, indicated by the telephone line  64 . The assisted user then uses a personal interpreter/captioned telephone (“PICT”) device  74  to connect to a relay  76  over a second telephone line or connection, indicated at  78 . There must be some form of communication between the telephone of the assisted user  70  and the PICT device  74 , so that the voice of the hearing user can be transferred to the second telephone line  78  to the relay  76 . At its simplest, the connection can be a simple acoustic connection, such as placing the sound pick-up microphone of the PICT device in such a location that the sound of the hearing person&#39;s voice is picked up and transmitted to the relay. A microphone connected to the PICT device  74  could be placed on the handset of the assisted user&#39; s telephone  70 . However, it is preferred that the PICT device be electronically connected to the telephone of the assisted user so that the voice of the hearing user can be transmitted to the relay call assistant with minimal interference or noise. The PICT device includes a visually readable display and suitable decoding electronics and software so that the device can receive and display a text stream received from the relay over the second telephone line. 
         [0029]    The main advantage of the two-line approach to captioned telephone is that the captioned telephone service can be added to a telephone call already in progress. By contrast, to use single line captioned telephone for an incoming call, the call must be directed through the relay to the assisted user at the beginning of the call. For a two-line captioned telephone call, however, the call can be started as a normal telephone communication session, without the relay or the captioning. Then, if the assisted user decides captioning would be helpful to his or her understanding of the conversation, the captioning service can be added while the call is in progress. To add the captioning service, the assisted user simply has the PICT device dial the relay over the second telephone line. The voice of the hearing user is then transmitted over the second telephone line to the relay. The relay converts the voice to text and the text stream created by the relay returns to the assisted user, also over the second telephone line. Note that in this arrangement, as indicated in  FIG. 5 , voice and text are transmitted in opposite directions over a single telephone line between the PICT device and the relay, voice going to the relay and text returning on the same line. This arrangement of voice and text is the same as used for the personal interpreter. 
         [0030]    One device intended to implement the two-line captioned telephone approach is illustrated in  FIG. 6 . The PICT device  80  of  FIG. 6  is an analog device connected in series between the telephone line  64  to the hearing user and the telephone  70  of the assisted user. As seen in  FIG. 6 , the telephone line  64  is connected directly through the PICT device  80  to the telephone  70 . However, that telephone connection is also connected through a transformer  82  to a 2-wire to 4-wire converter  84 . Connected to the output of the converter  84  is a low pass filter  86 , the output of which is the input to an amplifier  88 . The output of the amplifier  88  is connected to a 2-wire to 4-wire converter  89  which connects, in turn, to the telephone line  78  which connects to the relay (not shown here). The input signals from the telephone line  78  are connected to a hi-pass filter  90 , the output of which passes through a receive modem  92  to a microcontroller  94 . The microcontroller operates the display  96 . The microcontroller also includes the capability to generate DTMF dialing tones and impress those tones on the telephone line  78  when it is time to dial the relay. Thus here the single PICT device  80  connects to two telephone lines. A call can be initiated or received by the assisted user in the same manner as with a conventional telephone, using only the first telephone line  64 . When the user wishes to invoke the captioning service, the assisted user presses a button,  97 , on the PICT device  80  that causes the device to automatically dial the relay on the second telephone line  78 . The PICT device automatically transmits the voice signals on the first telephone line to the second telephone line (through the low-pass filter  86 ) for transmission to the relay. At the relay, the voice is converted into text and a text stream is sent back down the telephone connection  78  to the PICT device. The PICT device filters the text data, at the hi-pass filter  90 , and transmits it to the microcontroller  94  for display to the user. None of the text data, and no digital carrier signals, are heard by either the hearing user or the assisted user. Normally the hearing user does not even need to be aware that captioning is being used on the call. 
         [0031]    This example assumes that the digital carrier signals for the text message are carried on high frequencies, and the low pass and high pass filters are used to separate voice from text. While this filtering can be implemented as an analog filter, in many telephonic systems today, digital forms of communication are used. Using a digital communication protocol between the relay and the PICT device, communication is in the form of digital data packets of either text or digitized voice. In that event, the logical filtering simply consists of not creating any acoustic noise from the packets designated as carrying text. 
         [0032]    Several physical versions of the PICT device are contemplated. In the version illustrated in  FIG. 5 , the PICT device is a stand-alone appliance inserted in series between the telephone of the assisted user and the telephone jack on the wall of the user&#39;s home. It may also be convenient for the user to package the PICT device as a single two-line unit intended to provide both conventional telephone service, as well as captioned telephone services. The device could look like a normal telephone, but have a display. The captioned telephone feature would be activated by a button or key, which would cause the unit to dial a pre-selected relay and set up a captioning session, whether or not a call on the other line is yet in progress. The voice signals incoming on the first telephone line from the hearing user would be transferred electronically to the telephone line to the relay. Text signals would be transmitted on that same telephone line back from the relay to the PICT device, which would display that text for the assisted user. Since the re-voicing relay operates with only a very slight time delay, the text display for the assisted user would trail the hearing person&#39;s voice slightly, but the text would still assist the user in comprehending the conversation. 
         [0033]    It is a desirable feature of the two-line captioned telephone arrangement that the use of the captioning service is transparent to the hearing user. The hearing user would dial to connect to the assisted user as with any other telephone user. The assisted user invokes the captioned telephone service without the need to involve the hearing user at all. The service can be used equally well and transparently for both incoming and outgoing calls. 
         [0034]    It is also envisioned that the captioned telephone service can be implemented in a way that uses three telephone lines. One line is for voice communications with the hearing user. The second line is directly connected to the first line so that the voice of the hearing user is transmitted to the relay. The third line is a connection to transmit the text stream from the relay to the station of the assisted user. 
         [0035]    In the implementation of a relay providing captioned telephone service, the relay receives the voice of the hearing user and transmits both a digital text message stream and the voice of the hearing user over a telephone connection to the station of the assisted user. It is to be understood, however, that a conventional telephone single line connection is only one example of a telephonic connection that can be used in this arrangement. Digital wireless connection, or PCS connection, or even internet protocol (IP), wired or wireless connection can be used to connect the relay to the assisted user, so long as the connection in capable of transmitting voice to that user. 
         [0036]    Thus the term telephone line as used in this specification is intended not only to apply to a traditional land-line two-wire telephone line, but also to all equivalents that offer similar functionality. Each of the telephone lines could be, for example, a portion of the bandwidth of an ISDN or DSL service. The telephone line could be an analog or digital cellular telephone link or a PCS connection. The PICT device could also be connected to the internet communication in IP, and in that event the two telephone lines would simply be simultaneous digital data exchange with two remote locations. 
         [0037]    It is to be understood that the present invention is not limited to the particular illustrations and embodiments disclosed above, but embraces all such modified forms thereof as come within the scope of the following claims.