Patent Document ID: 5528728
Application ID: 08089825

Base Claim:
1. A speaker independent apparatus for word recognition comprising: a) input means for inputting an utterance by an unspecified person into an electrical signal; b) characteristic extracting means for receiving the electrical signal from the input means and converting the electrical signal into a time series of discrete characteristic multidimensional vectors; c) phoneme recognition means for selectively receiving the time series of discrete characteristic multidimensional vectors and converting each of said selectively received vectors into a plurality of candidates of phonemes from a first order to an n-th order (n denotes an arbitrary number); d) word recognition means for receiving a time series string of phonemes from the phoneme recognition means and comparing the plurality of candidates of phonemes, one at a time, with each phoneme of a reference string of phonemes for words previously stored in a dictionary until a final phoneme of the reference string of phonemes for a last word of the words stored in the dictionary and determining a time series of phonemes derived from said phoneme recognition means having a highest similarity to one of the reference strings of the phonemes for the words stored in the dictionary using a predetermined word matching technique; e) output means for outputting at least one of said candidates of phonemes as a result of word recognition carried out by the word recognition means on the basis of a similarity determination on the plurality of candidates of phonemes with respect to the reference strings of the words stored in said dictionary; and f) selecting means, interposed between said characteristic extracting means and phoneme recognition means, for selecting a center of a given number of frames of a continued time-series of discrete characteristic multidimensional vectors derived from said characteristic extracting means so that said phoneme recognition means receives the center thereof.

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Claim 2:
2. An apparatus as set forth in claim 1, wherein said word recognition means for determining the time series of strings of phonemes derived from said phoneme recognition means has a totally similarity to the time series reference string of phonemes for each word depending upon a distance from one of the plurality of candidates of the phonemes to one of the phonemes of the reference string of the phonemes in a two-dimensional coordinate matrix and wherein said output means outputs a plurality of word candidates as the result of word recognition according to a derived distance, a first order of the plurality of word candidates being the word having the reference string of phonemes with a smallest distance to the candidates of the time series of phonemes derived from said phoneme recognition means.