Personalizing Speech Output for Communication Devices

个性化通信设备的语音输出

• 批准号: 6646704
• 负责人: H TIMOTHY Bunnell
• 金额: $ 9.99万
• 依托单位: AGORANET, INC.
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2003
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2003-05-15 至 2005-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/6646704
• 关键词: bioengineering /biomedical engineering; biomedical equipment development; clinical research; communication disorder aid; computer program /software; computer system design /evaluation; human subject; medical rehabilitation related tag; speech synthesizers; technology /technique development; voice

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): ModelTalker is a text-to-speech synthesis (TTS) system intended to be of particular interest to potential Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) device users. Most present AAC devices use TTS software that derives from rule-based formant synthesis algorithms developed in the 1970s, but modern concatenative synthesis systems (of which ModelTalker is an example) can provide much more natural sounding synthetic speech of equal or higher intelligibility. Additionally, while rule-based formant synthesis typically produces speech resembling no particular speaker, concatenative synthesis affords the possibility of capturing the voice of a specific individual because it is based on sampling the speech of an individual speaker. This capability to produce personalized, unique, synthetic voices is one of the strongest attractions of concatenative synthesis for AAC device users. This STTR application seeks funding to transfer the ModelTalker TTS technology from the research laboratory in which it was developed to a small business for the purpose of commercialization. In the transfer process, specific enhancements to the synthesis software are proposed, and a new voice will be developed to (a) demonstrate that the ModelTalker TTS system is competitive with existing TTS systems in terms of both naturalness and intelligibility, and (b) provide one of several default voices that will ship with a commercial version of the system. Long Term goals for this project are to bring the method for personalizing synthetic "voices" to the general AAC population by packaging the ModelTalker engine with voice creation tools currently being developed. It is anticipated that this technology will have broader appeal for applications in which people want a unique synthetic voice (e.g. educational software and email dictation).

描述（由申请人提供）：ModelTalker是一种文本到语音综合（TTS）系统，旨在特别感兴趣，以潜在的增强和替代通信（AAC）设备用户。大多数当前的AAC设备都使用TTS软件，该软件从1970年代开发的基于规则的共晶合综合算法中衍生，但是现代的串联合成系统（其中的ModelTalker就是一个例子）可以提供更自然的相等或更高清晰度的合成语音。此外，虽然基于规则的共构成通常会产生类似于特定说话者的语音，但串联合成提供了捕获特定个人声音的可能性，因为它基于对单个说话者的演讲进行采样。产生个性化，独特的合成声音的能力是AAC设备用户的串联合成的最强景点之一。该STTR应用程序寻求资金将ModelTalker TTS技术从研究实验室转移到小型企业中，以进行商业化。在转移过程中，提出了对合成软件的特定增强功能，并且将开发新的声音以（a）证明ModelTalker TTS系统在自然性和清晰度方面与现有TTS系统具有竞争力，并且（b）提供了几种默认声音之一，该声音将与该系统的商业版本一起发货。该项目的长期目标是通过将ModelTalker引擎用当前正在开发的语音创建工具包装包装，将合成“声音”个性化合成“声音”的方法。预计这项技术将对人们想要独特的合成语音（例如教育软件和电子邮件命令）的应用程序有更广泛的吸引力。