JPH0451799A - Remote control system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To apply remote control freely from any remote control means by selecting one of two remote control means comprising a remote control transmitter and a remote control receiver by means of button operation and a remote control transmitter and a remote control receiver by means of voice operation. CONSTITUTION:A selection circuit 9 selects one set of information in coded button depression information from a manual remote control signal output terminal 4-4 through a manual remote control signal line 5 and command voice information coded from a voice remote control signal output terminal 7-4 through a voice remote control signal line 8 and outputs the selected information to a control circuit 2. The control circuit 2 monitors the output of the selection circuit 9 to apply prescribed control when an output goes to logical 1. Thus, a device 1 to be controlled is controlled remotely even by manual operation and voice operation. Then the user of the device applies remote control to the device by using a preferred means.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a remote control method for controlling the operation of appliances, particularly household electrical appliances, by voice, that is, by uttering control command words.

[Conventional technology]

Many conventional household electrical appliances are equipped with a remote control device (remote control) for the purpose of allowing a user to operate the appliance remotely.

For example, a small air conditioner (air conditioner).

Most products such as televisions and video tape recorders (VTRs) are equipped with remote control devices.

Most of these remote control devices control the operation of a controlled device, such as a small air conditioner or a television, by transmitting operation command information wirelessly, such as infrared rays, to a controlled device, specifically, a small air conditioner, a television, etc., by operating a button.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a part related to a remote control device for remotely controllable household electric appliances that is widely used at present.

In FIG. 2, l is a remotely controlled device, specifically an air conditioner or a television.

Indicates a VTR, etc. 2 is a control circuit that is built into the remote control device l and controls this operation; 3 is a manual remote control transmitter that transmits button press information in order to perform remote control by button operation; 4 is a manual remote control transmitter. The button press information transmitted by the machine 3 is received and sent to the control circuit 2 via the manual remote control signal line 5. Usually, the manual remote control transmitter 3 is installed separately from the remote controlled device 1, and the manual remote control receiver 4 is built into the same housing.

The device user holds the manual remote control transmitter 3 in his hand and controls the device from a distance by operating buttons.

FIG. 3 shows an embodiment of the manual remote control transmitter 3 and the manual remote control receiver 4. In Figure 3, 3-1 is a push button, 3-2 is a key matrix circuit, 3-3 is an encode circuit, 3-4 is a transmission circuit, and 3-5 is an infrared LED.
4-1 is a pin photodiode, 4-2 is an amplifier circuit, 4-3 is a receiving circuit, and 4-4 is a manual remote control signal output terminal. Pressing information of the pushbutton 3-1 arranged on the manual remote control transmitter 3 is encoded by the key matrix circuit 32 and the encoding circuit 3-3. This code is PPM-modulated by the transmitting circuit 3-4 and sent out as intermittent infrared light by the infrared LED 3-5.

This intermittent infrared light is received by the pin photodiode 4-1 arranged in the manual remote control receiver 4, and is transmitted to the amplifier circuit 4.
-2, demodulated and demodulated by the receiving circuit 4-3, and output from the manual remote control signal output terminal as press information.

In the above circuit configuration, the user's button operation is based on press information,
In other words, the information indicating which button was pressed is optically transmitted and transmitted to the control circuit 2 of the remotely controlled device 1 .

For example, if we take an air conditioner as an example of "remotely controlled device" (in the following explanation, we will use the air conditioner as an example), when you press a button printed with "stop", this press information is received from the manual remote control transmitter 3. The signal is optically transmitted to the machine 4 and output to the control circuit 2 via the manual remote control signal line 5.

The control circuit 2 recognizes that the stop button has been pressed and stops the operation of the compressor, fan, etc.

In recent years, the functionality of household electrical appliances has improved, and it has become possible to perform complex functions and operations.

Examples include operation reservations for small air conditioners (timer settings for cooling/heating operation times), detailed settings for temperature, air volume, etc., and program reservation recording for video tape recorders. At the same time, in order to make these functions controllable from the manual remote control transmitter 3, the manual remote control transmitter 3 has been provided with a large number of operation buttons. In order to perform a single function, it is necessary to search for and press the necessary button among the many operation buttons.

This button pressing operation is difficult for people with physical disabilities or the elderly. This is extremely troublesome even for ordinary people.

Therefore, it is being considered to replace this button press operation with voice production.

For example, there are air conditioners described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Nos. 56-102635 and 60-122850.

[Problem to be solved by the invention]

The above-mentioned conventional technology is designed to use voice recognition technology to recognize a command word uttered by a user and cause the air conditioner to perform the operation indicated by the command word.

For example, if you utter "Stop J," the voice recognition function of the remote control device will recognize this utterance, and will transmit information equivalent to pressing the stop button in manual remote control to the control circuit 2, and the air conditioner will Alternatively, stop the fan operation.

In this way, since remote control is possible using natural voice, even if your hands are unrecognizable, you can easily control the air conditioner, making it much easier to operate than conventional button-operated remote control devices. .

However, the recognition rate of current speech recognition technology is 99% for specific speaker word speech recognition and 95% for non-specific speaker word speech recognition.
It is said that These values are nominal values, and in actual use they will be even lower due to the effects of ambient noise, etc. In other words, the reliability of remote control using voice is inferior to that of conventional remote control using button operations.

Therefore, when remote control is performed only by voice as in this prior art, a problem arises in that if voice recognition becomes impossible due to large ambient noise or the like, remote control becomes impossible. Furthermore, even if the voice cannot be recognized, if the command voice is mixed with ambient noise and is misrecognized, no means for correcting this is taken into account, which often confuses the user.

An object of the present invention is to replace this with conventional button-operated remote control when voice recognition becomes impossible due to loud ambient noise or the like, and voice-based remote control becomes impossible.

Another object of the present invention is that when the voice recognition of the voice remote control means causes erroneous recognition due to the contamination of ambient noise, etc., resulting in unintended control contents and it becomes necessary to correct this, it is possible to use the conventional button operation. The purpose is to allow corrections to be made by remote control means.

Another object of the present invention is to achieve both conventional button-operated remote control and voice-based remote control.

[Means to solve the problem]

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides a manual remote control means that enables remote control by button operation, an audio remote control means that enables remote control by voice, and a plurality of outputs from each remote control means. A selection means for selecting one remote control signal from among the remote control signals is provided, and the remote control signal selected by the selection means is input to the control means of the controlled device.

[Effect]

The manual remote control means outputs a remote control signal according to a button operation by a user. The voice remote control means recognizes the user's command voice and outputs the result as a remote control signal. The selection means selects one remote control signal from the remote control signals. The control means controls the remotely controlled device using the selected remote control signal. As described above, the remotely controlled device is remotely controlled by button operation or voice. If the command voice cannot be recognized, remote control can be performed by pressing a button, and if the command voice is misrecognized, it can be corrected by pressing a button, improving the reliability of remote control by voice. possible, and does not cause any inconvenience to the user.

〔Example〕

An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIG. 1st
In the figure, 6 is an audio remote control transmitter for voice control, 7 is an audio remote control receiver that receives signals from the audio remote control transmitter 6, 8 is an audio remote control signal line, and 9 is a manual Remote control signal line 5 and audio remote control signal line 8
A selection circuit selects one of the remote control signals from and outputs it to the control circuit 2, and 10 is a remote control signal line that transmits the selected remote control signal to the control circuit 2.

Figure 4 shows the voice remote control transmitter 6. Voice remote control receiver 7
An example is shown below. In FIG. 4, 61 is a microphone, 6-2 is an amplifier circuit, 6-3 is a voice recognition circuit, and 6-4 is a microphone.
is a transmitting circuit, 6-5 is an infrared LED, 7-1 is a pin photodiode, 7-2 is an amplifier circuit, 7-3 is a receiving circuit, and 74 is an audio remote control signal output terminal.

Now, for simplicity, the manual remote control transmitter 3 is shown in FIG.
Hereinafter, an embodiment will be described assuming that the device has push buttons for "run", "stop", "hot", and "cold J", and that the air conditioner is remotely controlled by pressing these buttons.

When a user wants to remotely control the air conditioner manually, that is, by pressing a button, the user presses the button. For example, if you want to stop the air conditioner, press the button labeled "Stop". Manual remote control transmitter 3 and manual remote control receiver 4
The operation has been described above, so it will be omitted here.

Voice remote control transmitter6. The audio remote control receiver 7 is basically designed to perform the same function as the manual remote control transmitter 31 and the manual remote control means 4.

In other words, as a control command word necessary for remote control,
t r stop" Using the words "hot" and "cold", when the user utters one of these words, the function is equivalent to pressing any button on the manual remote control device 3. It is designed to serve the purpose.

The microphone 6-1 collects control command words uttered by the user, converts them into electrical signals, and outputs the electrical signals to the amplifier circuit 6-2. The control command voice amplified by the amplifier circuit 6-2 is input to the voice recognition circuit 6-3, where its meaning and content are recognized. The recognition result is encoded in the same manner as performed by the key matrix circuit 32 and the encoding circuit 3-3 of the manual remote control transmitter 3 and output to the transmitting circuit 6-4. This code is PPM modulated by the transmitting circuit 6-4, and the infrared LED 6-4
5 and is transmitted as intermittent infrared light.

The speech recognition circuit 6-3 is an application of known speech recognition technology, and includes an AD converter and a speech recognition LSI, such as Matsushita MN1263. It is composed of ROM, RA, M, control mcPU (not shown), etc. A detailed explanation of voice recognition will not be given here. Regarding this voice recognition, see the January 3 issue of Nikkei Electronics magazine.

In 1983, ``One-chip voice recognition LS that analyzes voice using Walsh-Hadamard transform'' is described in detail in Ding J. This is speaker-specific voice recognition in which the user's voice is registered in advance. The present invention is not limited to this, and may also be speaker-independent speech recognition that does not require registration.

The voice recognition circuit 6-3 uses the user's voice to say "Driving J."

It is designed to recognize four words: "stop,""hot," and "cold." When an audio signal is input, it recognizes this and outputs one of the codes representing these four words as a result.

The pin photodiode 7-1 has a recognition result code of P.
It receives a PM modulated optical signal and converts it into an electrical signal. This electric signal is amplified by the amplifier circuit 72, demodulated by the receiving circuit 7-3, and further decoded, and outputted from the audio remote control signal output terminal 7-4.

In the embodiment shown in FIG. 4, the command word utterance by the user and the microphone 6-1. Amplification circuit 6-2. The operation of the voice recognition circuit 6-3 is based on the user's button press operations in the case of manual remote control and the push buttons 3-1. Key matrix circuit 3-2. The operation is designed to be equivalent to that of the encoder circuit 3-3.

What is output from the manual remote control signal output terminal 4-4 is encoded button press information, and what is output from the audio remote control signal output terminal 7-4 is encoded command voice information.

The selection circuit 9 receives encoded button press information from the manual remote control signal output terminal 4 - 4 transmitted through the manual remote control signal line 5 and audio remote control signal output transmitted through the audio remote control signal line 8 . The control circuit 2 selects one of the encoded command voice information from the terminal 7-4.
Output to.

An embodiment of the selection circuit 9 is shown in FIG. In the 6th Ward, 9-
1 is a manual code decoding circuit, 9-2 is a voice code decoding circuit, and 9-3 is an OR circuit.

FIG. 7 shows manual code decoding circuit 9-1. An example of the truth value of the voice code decoding circuit 9-2 is shown.

This consists of button press information encoded in bits and command voice information into four types of information (``run'', ``stop'').

``hot'', ``cold'').

The operation button press information is encoded into 3 bits as roolJ (0 and 1 represent binary values of logic levels low and high), and when this code is input to the decoding circuit, the output a
becomes 1, that is, a high level, and the rest.

c and d indicate that 0, that is, a low level is output.

Manual code decoding circuit 9-1. Audio code decoding circuit 9
The outputs of -2 are respectively expressed as a pair (a, ab and b
'c, cd, and d') are input to the OR circuit 9-3, where they are logically summed and output as outputs A, B, C, and D. This output is connected to the control circuit 2.

For example, when the stop button of the manual remote control transmitter 3 is pressed, the code ``rolo'' is output to the manual remote control signal line 5, and the output of the manual code decoding circuit 9-1 becomes 1. At this time, if no command voice is input to the voice remote control transmitter 6, the output b' of the voice code decoding circuit 9-2 is 0, and if the command voice "stop" is input, the output b'
is 1.

Therefore, in either case, the output B of the OR circuit 9-3 becomes ]. In the opposite case, that is, if the button of the manual remote control transmitter 3 is not pressed, the output is O, and the output b' is 1 only when the command voice "stop" is input to the voice remote control transmitter 6. Therefore, the output B of the OR circuit 9-3 becomes 1.

The control circuit 2 is composed of a microprocessor or the like, and the aforementioned outputs A, B, C, and D are connected to this input port terminal.

FIG. 8 shows an embodiment of the control flow of the control circuit 2. The control circuit 2 monitors the output of the selection circuit 9, and when the output becomes 1, performs predetermined control.

As described above, according to this embodiment, it is possible to remotely control the controlled device 1 either manually or by voice. The device user can then remotely control the device using his or her preferred means.

Furthermore, the voice recognition circuit 7-12 of the voice remote control receiver 7
If voice recognition becomes impossible due to the contamination of ambient noise, or if it is misrecognized and needs to be corrected, manual remote control can be used to replace or correct the voice. The reliability of remote control can also be improved.

In the embodiment shown in FIG. 4, optical transmission similar to manual transmission is used to transmit command voice information between the transmitter and receiver. In this case, it would be inconvenient if button press information and command voice information were transmitted at the same time. If the emission wavelengths of the infrared LEDs 3-5 and 6-5 are the same, each light will interfere in the air, and the intermittent light received by the bin photodiode of the receiver will be different from the transmitted light. This cannot be avoided by changing the modulation method or by changing the optical intermittent frequency (usually called the carrier frequency). To avoid this, it is necessary to change the emission wavelength significantly. However, the emission wavelength is determined by the type of semiconductor used in the LED, and at present, the emission wavelengths of infrared LEDs, which have stable manufacturing processes and are supplied in large quantities at low cost, are almost the same, although there are some differences. Furthermore, the peak wavelength of the reception sensitivity of the bin photodiode used for reception is also compatible with the emission wavelength of infrared LEDs, which are inexpensive in large quantities, and if the emission wavelength is changed significantly, the reception sensitivity will deteriorate.

In addition, when button press information and command voice information are optically transmitted at the same time, if the person holding the manual remote control transmitter 3 and the person holding the voice remote control transmitter/receiver 6 are different, even if the person is the same person, the voice command may not be transmitted. It is conceivable that a button operation is performed immediately after the command is issued. In the latter case, the voice recognition circuit 6
-3 performs recognition processing, and this recognition processing requires approximately 500m5 of time.

Figure 9 shows voice remote control transmitter 6. Voice remote control receiver 7
A second example is shown below. 6-6 is a three-frequency signal encoding circuit, 6-7 is a two-layer wave signal generation circuit, 6-8 is a speaker drive circuit, 6-9 is a speaker, 7-5 is a microphone, 7-6 is an amplifier circuit, 7-7 is a three-frequency signal detection circuit, and 7-8 is a one-frequency decoding circuit. In this embodiment, command voice information is transmitted using an audible frequency, that is, a sound wave.

The user's command voice is recognized by the voice recognition circuit 6-3 and input as encoded command voice information to the two-frequency encoding circuit. The three-frequency signal generating circuit 67 generates a mixed signal of two different audible frequency sine waves with predetermined code data.
TMF signals are well known. Three-frequency signal detection circuit 7-7
detects a mixed signal of two audio frequency sine waves, and outputs equal coded data. The DTMF signal generation LSI and DTMF signal detection LSI are manufactured by Oki Electric Co., Ltd.
M6224 RS, same < M S M6920RS
These can be used to configure the three-frequency signal generation circuit 67 and the three-frequency signal detection circuit 7=7.

The DTMF signal has four low frequency groups of 697Hz, 77
0Hz.

852) 1z, one frequency signal among 941Hz and high group frequency 1209) 17. , 1336) IZ, 1477
This is a combination of one frequency signal within H2, 1633Hz, and consists of a total of 16 types of mixed signals. When used with a telephone, each combination is associated with a telephone number.

The output of the voice recognition circuit is coded command voice information, and for example, as shown in FIG. 7, when a "stop" utterance is uttered, the code is rolOJ.

The three-frequency signal decoding circuit 6-6 converts the 20r010J code into a code or code time series for driving the three-frequency signal generating circuit 6-7. For example, if the rolo code is considered as a binary number, the decimal value is 2, and the DTMF signals (frequency 697) 1z and 1336H representing telephone number 2 are
It is designed to output 8 signals (three frequency signals of z) for a certain period of time.

The r010J code is not limited to this, and the decimal value is 34.
5 and may be designed to continuously output a DTMF signal representing the telephone number 3, 4, 5 for a predetermined period of time. The command voice code re-encoded by the three-frequency signal decoding circuit 6-6 is converted into a three-frequency signal by the three-frequency signal generating circuit 6-7, amplified by the speaker driving circuit 6-8, and the speaker 69 emits sound waves in the air. released as.

This three-frequency signal is converted into an electric signal by a microphone 7-5, amplified by an amplifier circuit 7-6, and input to a three-frequency signal detection circuit 7-7. The three-frequency signal sent here is detected and a code equivalent to a telephone number is output. Then, the three-frequency signal decoding circuit 7-8 performs the reverse operation of the previous three-frequency signal encoding circuit 6-6, and outputs command voice information encoded into three bits from the voice remote control signal output terminal 7-4. .

According to this embodiment, the button press information and command voice information are transmitted using completely different methods of light and sound waves, respectively, so it is possible to avoid the malfunction problem caused by light interference that occurs in the embodiment of FIG. 4. .

Although the present embodiment has been described with reference to the case where the audible three-frequency signal is transmitted, the present invention is not limited to this, and the signal may be transmitted using a single frequency or three or more frequencies. Although it is possible with a single frequency signal,
In this case, there is a high possibility that malfunctions will occur due to noise such as surrounding human voices. Human voice.

Many noises have a harmonic structure, consisting of a fundamental frequency and its harmonics. Therefore, in the case of a single frequency signal, there is a high probability that the frequency will be the same as the fundamental frequency of the noise or its harmonic components. In the case of multiple frequencies, it is clear that the above probability is very small for multiple frequencies that are not in harmonic relationship. In the DTMF signal used for explanation in this embodiment, the two-layer waves to be combined are in a mutually prime relationship, that is, not in a harmonic relationship. Therefore, the telephone terminal uses this DTMF signal for data entry. Since it is possible to accurately detect a DTMF signal (push button signal) even if it is mixed with an audio signal (human voice), this DTMF signal ( It is well known that a PB multiplied signal is used.

Furthermore, it is clear that the two-layer wave does not need to be in the audible band, and may be a so-called ultrasonic wave.

Above, we have explained manual remote control as optical transmission and voice remote control as sound wave transmission, but it is clear that it is possible to do the opposite, that is, manual remote control as voice transmission and voice remote control as optical transmission. .

In this case, the audio remote control transmitter 6 and receiver 7 are
The manual remote control transmitter 3 and receiver 4 are the embodiment shown in FIG.
5 to the double-layer wave signal encoding circuit 6-6 of the embodiment of FIG.
, three-frequency signal generation circuit 6-7, speaker drive circuit 6-8
, the speaker 6-9 is replaced with the bin photodiode 4-1, the amplifier circuit 4-2, and the receiving circuit 43 of the embodiment shown in FIG.
The microphone 7-5 and the amplifier circuit 7- of the embodiment shown in FIG.
6. The circuit is replaced with a three-frequency signal detection circuit 7-7 and a two-layer wave signal decoding circuit 7-8.

That is, in this embodiment, transmission of a manual remote control signal and transmission of an audio remote control signal are performed using different physical means (light and sound).

In order to easily use the remote control transmitter in a general household, it is desirable that it be small and lightweight and powered by dry batteries.The current manual remote control transmitter 3 is designed to reduce power consumption and operate on dry batteries. Common.

Similarly, it is desirable that the voice remote control transmitter 6 be small and lightweight and powered by dry batteries, but current voice recognition technology requires a lot of arithmetic processing, so the power consumption of the LSI that performs this is large. .

Therefore, if the voice recognition circuit 6-3 is built into the voice remote control transmitter 6, the dry cell battery will quickly die out and will need to be replaced frequently.

This is troublesome for the user.

FIG. 10 shows a third embodiment of the audio remote control transmitter 6 and the audio remote control receiver 7. 6-10 is a modulation circuit, 6-1
1 is a high frequency output circuit, 6-12 is an antenna, and 7-
9 is an antenna, 7-10 is a high frequency amplification circuit, 7-11 is a demodulation circuit, and 7-12 is a voice recognition circuit.

In this embodiment, the user's command voice is transmitted by radio waves from the voice remote control transmitter 6 to the voice remote control receiver 7, and is recognized by the voice recognition circuit 7-12 built in the voice remote control receiver 7.

The user's command voice collected by the microphone 6-1 is converted into an electrical signal here, amplified by the amplifier circuit 62, and input to the modulation circuit 6-10. The modulation circuit 6-10 is a circuit that modulates the command voice so as to transmit it on a carrier wave, and for example, FM modulation is selected as the modulation method. The command voice modulated here is carried on a carrier wave, amplified by a high frequency output circuit 6-11, and radiated into the air from an antenna 6-12. Considering household electrical equipment, these radio waves need to be weak radio waves equivalent to ``radio stations that do not require a license'' as stipulated in the Radio Law. In this case, the modulation circuit is preferably one that applies FM modulation directly to the carrier wave oscillation circuit, and the high frequency output circuit is also preferably constructed from a small signal high frequency transistor. The modulation circuit at this time,
The power consumption of the high-frequency output circuit can be reduced to 10 mW or less, and it can be sufficiently driven for a long time with dry batteries.

The command voice carried on the carrier wave is received by an antenna 7-9, amplified by a high frequency amplification circuit 9-106, and demodulated by a demodulation circuit 7-11 to become the original command voice signal.

For example, in the case of FM modulation, FM demodulation is performed here. The demodulated command voice is input to the voice recognition circuit 7-12, where it is recognized.

The voice recognition circuit 7-12 is the same as the voice recognition circuits 6-3, and the recognized command voice is encoded and output from the voice remote control signal output terminal 74 as command voice information.

If the FM broadcast band is used as the carrier wave frequency, the high frequency amplification circuit and the demodulation circuit can be constructed from inexpensive LSIs for commercially available FM radios.

Since the voice remote control receiver 7 is built into the remotely controlled device 1, the power consumption of the voice recognition circuit 7-12 does not matter.

As described above, according to this embodiment, the power consumption of the audio remote control transmitter 6 can be reduced, and the transmitter 6 can be small and lightweight and can be driven by dry batteries.

FIG. 11 shows a fourth embodiment of the audio remote control transmitter 6 and the audio remote control receiver 7. In the figure, 613 is a dry battery that is a power source, 6-14 is a manual power switch that manually disconnects the current supply to the circuit, 6-15 is a current supply line to the circuit, and 7-13 is for detecting a carrier wave. carrier detection circuit,
7-14 is a speech synthesis circuit that synthesizes speech; 7-15
is a voice synthesized sound output terminal. Speech synthesis sound output terminal 7-
15 is connected to a speaker (not shown).

In this embodiment, the operation of the voice remote control transmitter 6, that is, the transmission of a modulated carrier wave of a command voice signal, is performed by manually disconnecting and disconnecting the current supply, and the voice remote control receiver 7 detects the presence or absence of a carrier wave, and detects the presence or absence of a carrier wave. In other words, the voice recognition circuit 7-12 operates in a state where the command voice signal can be transmitted.

When performing remote control by voice, the user closes the manual power switch 6-14 (a state in which current is supplied to the circuit). When the power switches 6 to 14 are connected, the amplifier circuit 6-2,
Current is supplied from the current supply line 6-15 to the modulation circuit 6-10 and the high frequency output port 6-11, and a carrier wave is transmitted.

The user's voice is then sent to the voice remote control receiver 7 as a command voice signal. The carrier wave detection circuit 7-13 of the voice remote control receiver 7 detects the carrier wave and learns the user's utterance intention.

Then, a detection signal is output to the voice recognition circuit 7-12. The voice recognition circuit 7-12 interprets this detection signal as the user's utterance intention, enters a state in which it receives and accepts the user's command voice signal, takes in the uttered command voice signal, and recognizes it.

The voice synthesis circuit 7-14 is provided so that the user can perform voice remote control in an interactive manner. When the user turns on the manual power switch 6-14, the carrier wave is detected, the voice recognition circuit 7-12 learns the intention of the user's voice command, and controls the voice synthesis circuit 7-14 to say, for example, "What should I do?" It outputs a synthesized voice that encourages the user to say ``Kona''.This synthesized voice is emitted toward the user from a speaker (not shown) connected to the voice synthesized voice output terminal 7-15.After the voice synthesis is completed, The voice recognition circuit 7-12 puts itself into a voice receiving state in order to receive the user's command voice, cuts out the command voice uttered by the user, and recognizes it.The recognition result is used as command voice information. It is encoded and output from the voice remote control output terminal 7-4.At this time, the voice recognition circuit 7-12 controls the voice synthesis circuit 7-14 to notify the user of the recognition result, e.g. When the J voice is input, a voice such as "Stop driving" is output. In this way, the voice synthesis circuit 7-14 is combined with the voice recognition circuit 7-12, making it possible to perform remote control using the user's voice in an interactive manner. In addition, if the user forgets to turn off the manual power switch 614 after finishing the voice command, a voice will be synthesized saying "Please turn off the transmitter", and the battery will be wasted due to forgetting to turn off the power switch 614. It can also prevent the consumption of 13. This is determined by the carrier wave detection circuit 7-13 continuing to output a detection signal for a certain period of time even after the voice recognition circuit 7-12 recognizes the command voice and outputs the result. 14
According to the present embodiment, the power consumption of the voice remote control transmitter 6 is reduced, and the voice recognition circuit 7e 2 is operated only when necessary. Inadvertent malfunctions due to noise from the remote control device 1, particularly noise mixed into the audio signal input terminal of the audio recognition circuit 712, can be prevented.

Furthermore, the voice synthesis circuit 7-14 allows voice remote control to be performed in an interactive manner, which has the effect of not giving the user a sense of alienation.

FIG. 12 shows a fifth embodiment of the audio remote control transmitter 6. In this embodiment, the manual power switch 6-14 of the voice remote control transmitter 6 shown in FIG. 11 is semi-automatic, that is, the power is turned off automatically to prevent the user from forgetting to turn off the power. 6
-16 is a push button switch, 617 is a one-shot multivibrator circuit, and 618 is an automatic power switch. The one-shot multivibrator circuit 6-17 generates a pulse for a certain period of time when triggered by the push button switch 6-16. This pulse signal is transmitted to the automatic power switch 6-18, whereby the automatic power switch 6-18 is kept in a closed state for a certain period of time, and the amplifier circuit 6-2
, a modulation circuit 6-10, and a high frequency output circuit 6-11. The fixed time is the time for the user to utter the command voice, and is about 2 seconds. Note that power is always supplied to the one-shot multivibrator circuit 6-17.

According to this embodiment, it is possible to prevent wasteful consumption of the dry battery 6-13 due to the user forgetting to turn off the power switch.

Carrier wave transmission of audio signals may be subject to interference with other carrier waves. The carrier frequency of the audio remote control transmitter 6 is naturally selected excluding the frequency of public broadcasting, but for example, 90M.
If the Hz band is selected, there is a good chance that there will be interference with the carrier waves of household devices such as wireless masks that use the same band.

FIG. 13 shows a sixth embodiment of the audio remote control transmitter 6 and the audio remote control transmitter 7. In this embodiment, the voice recognition circuit 7-12 is prevented from malfunctioning when there is interference with other carrier waves.

In FIG. 13, 6-19 is an identification signal generation circuit that generates an identification signal for distinguishing the radiated carrier wave from the voice remote control transmitter 6 from that from other devices, and 6-20 is a circuit for generating an identification signal for distinguishing the radiated carrier wave from the voice remote control transmitter 6 from that from other devices. 7-16 is an identification signal detection circuit that detects the previous identification signal.

The one-shot multivibrator circuit 6-17 generates two pulse signals of different lengths when the push button 6-16 is pressed. The long pulse signal is used to control the automatic power switch 6-18 described in section 1211, and the short pulse signal is used to control the identification signal generation circuit 6-19.

If the user intends to perform remote control by voice, press button 6-1.
Press 6 for short pulse signal time, e.g. 300m
A 5-way identification signal is generated in an identification signal generation circuit 6-19, and this identification signal is passed through a mixing circuit 6-20 to a modulation circuit 6-12.
and is radiated from the antenna 6-12. This is received by the antenna 7-9, demodulated by the demodulation circuit 7-11, and detected by the identification signal detection circuit 716. This detection is communicated to speech recognition circuit 712. At this time, the carrier wave detection circuit 7-13 naturally also detects the carrier wave and transmits this to the voice recognition circuit 7-12.

In the case of carrier wave radiation from equipment other than the audio remote control transmitter 6, since it is not modulated with an identification signal, the detection signal of the carrier wave detection circuit 7-13 is output, but the detection signal of the identification signal detection circuit 7-16 is not detected. No signal is output.

Only when a carrier wave and an identification signal are detected, the speech recognition circuit 7-12 controls the speech synthesis circuit 7-14 as explained in the embodiment of FIG. 11 and asks "What should I do?" After outputting a synthesized sound such as "?", the device turns itself into a state where it has a voice frame in order to receive the next command voice from the user, cuts out the command voice uttered by the user, and recognizes it.

If only a carrier wave is detected, it is determined that it is from another device and no voice recognition operation is performed. In this case, it may be designed to control the speech synthesis circuit 7-14 to synthesize and output a guidance voice such as "There is interference. Voice operation is not possible, please operate the buttons." In other words, the user is informed that voice operation is disabled due to interference, and the use of the manual remote control transmitter 3, which is an alternative means, is recommended.

The identifier signal may be a single-frequency sine wave signal or a multi-frequency sine wave signal used in the embodiment of FIG. 9, such as a DTMF signal, or may be a time- or frequency-encoded signal.

For example, a DTMF signal corresponding to the telephone number r123J may be continued for a certain period of time. In this case, the telephone number is used as the code. It is desirable that this code be settable by the user. This way you can use this as a key.

Furthermore, it is more desirable to select a frequency different from the voice (command voice) band for the identifier signal, so that the two long and short pulse signals of the one-shot multivibrator circuit 617 are set as one of the long pulse signals, and the identification signal generating circuit 6
-19 is controlled by current supply like other circuits, and it is possible to continuously generate an identification signal for a long period of time.

In this case, the command voice signal and the identification signal overlap in time, but this can be solved by inserting a frequency separation circuit after the demodulation circuit 7-11 and separating the voice signal and the identification signal from the demodulation signal, respectively. -1.2 and identification signal detection circuit 7
If you input -16, no problem will occur. If the identification signal transmission time becomes longer, erroneous detection of the identification signal itself can be reduced.

Many of the current manual remote control transmitters 3 can be stored in the remotely controlled device 1 when not in use. If voice remote control is not possible due to interference, it is recommended to use the manual remote control transmitter 3 as a substitute, but the user will have to search for the manual remote control transmitter 3 at this point.

Therefore, if the manual remote control transmitter 3 is housed in the remotely controlled device 1, it is desirable to notify the user of this fact. This is a manual remote control transmitter 3 to the remotely controlled device 1.
For example, by installing a microswitch in the storage location and using the fact that the microswitch is in the closed state when it is stored, it is possible to detect whether the microswitch is When the air conditioner is connected, the voice synthesis circuit 7-14 is used to give guidance such as ``Interference.Voice operation is not possible, so please use the button remote control stored in the air conditioner.J''.

As described above, according to the present embodiment, it is possible to prevent the speech recognition circuit 7-12 from malfunctioning due to carrier wave radiation from other devices.

FIG. 14 shows a seventh embodiment of the voice remote control transmitter 6 and the voice remote control receiver 7. In this embodiment, a receiving circuit is built into the audio remote control transmitter 6, a frequency at which no carrier wave is detected is determined, and this frequency is used for transmitting the command audio signal. In other words, this is a way to proactively avoid interference. 6-21 is P that changes the output frequency stepwise within a certain range.
A frequency synthesizer using LL technology, 6-22 is an antenna, 6-23 is a high frequency amplifier circuit that can change the tuning frequency according to the output frequency of the frequency synthesizer 6-21, 6-24 is a carrier wave detection circuit, and 6-25 is a It is an OR circuit, 7-17 is a frequency separation circuit that separates the command voice signal and identification signal, and 7-18 is a frequency synthesizer 6-2.
This is a frequency synthesizer similar to 1.

When the push button 6-16 is pressed, the one-shot multivibrator circuit 6-17 first generates a short pulse signal,
When this is finished, another long pulse signal is generated. The automatic power switch 6-18 is controlled by these pulse signals, and current is supplied to each circuit. The current supply to the frequency synthesizer is delayed by the sum of the short pulse signal and the long pulse signal.

This is done by calculating the logical sum of the long and short pulse signals in the OR circuit 6-25 and controlling the automatic power switch 6-18 with this logical sum.

During the short pulse signal, current is supplied to the frequency synthesizer 621, the high frequency amplification circuit 6-23, and the carrier detection circuit 624. Simultaneously with the supply, the frequency synthesizer 6-21 sequentially changes the output frequency starting from a certain frequency. Along with this, the high frequency amplifier circuit 623 changes the tuning frequency,
It monitors whether other equipment or broadcast carrier waves are present at the tuned frequency. This is the carrier wave detection circuit 6-
24. The frequency synthesizer stops changing the output frequency at the tuning frequency where there is no detection signal of the carrier detection circuit 6-24. Then, in the next long pulse signal, current flows in the frequency synthesizer 6-21, amplifier circuit 6-2, subsignal generation circuit 6-19, mixing circuit 6-20, modulation circuit 6-10, and high-frequency output circuit 6-11. Supplied. At this time, the identification signal and the audio signal are modulated, put on the carrier wave of the previously tuned frequency (the stopped and fixed output frequency of the frequency synthesizer), and radiated from the antennas 6 to 12 to the audio remote control receiver 7. transmitted.

Frequency synthesizer 7-18 in audio remote control receiver 7
The device operates within a certain frequency range while sequentially changing its output frequency. The high frequency amplifier circuit 7-10 changes its tuning frequency in accordance with the output frequency of the frequency synthesizer 7-18. When the identification signal is transmitted from the audio remote control transmitter 6, at a certain point, that is, when the carrier frequency of the audio remote control transmitter 6 and the tuned frequency of the audio remote control receiver 7 match, the identification signal is transmitted to the frequency separation circuit. 7-
17 (the identification signal uses a different band from that of the audio signal), and detected by an identification signal detection circuit 7-16.

When the identification signal is detected, the frequency synthesizer 7-1
8 stops the change in its output frequency, and the high frequency amplification circuit 7
The tuning frequency of -10 is fixed. The command voice is separated from the identification signal by the frequency separation circuit 7-17, and the voice recognition circuit 7
-12 is input. The detection of the identification signal is also output to the speech recognition circuit 7-12, which in turn controls the speech synthesis circuit 7-14 and outputs a synthesized sound such as "What do you want to do?" After that, the device puts itself into a voice reception state in order to receive the next command voice from the user, cuts out the command voice uttered by the user, and recognizes it.

In this way, this embodiment finds a frequency on its own where no carrier wave from another device exists, and transmits the command voice using the carrier wave of that frequency. Therefore, there is no interference and the voice recognition circuit 7-1
2 will not malfunction.

Note that the time period for changing the output frequency of the frequency synthesizer 6-21.7-18 in stages is determined by the carrier wave detection circuit 6.
-24, it is necessary that the response time be longer than the response time of the identification signal detection circuit. Further, instead of a frequency synthesizer, it is also possible to sequentially switch the output of a fixed oscillation circuit using a plurality of crystal oscillators using a switch or the like.

According to this embodiment, interference with carrier waves of other devices can be prevented, and as a result, malfunction of the voice recognition circuit 7-12 can be prevented.

The recognition rate of current speech recognition technology is said to be 99% for specific speaker word speech recognition and 95% for non-specific speaker word speech recognition. However, these recognition rates are values published in literature, etc., and in actual use, the recognition rate will further decrease due to ambient noise of the user, unfamiliarity with voice input, etc. In our experience, we can only expect a recognition rate of 80-90%. In other words,
Voice recognition is far less reliable than button presses.

When using voice recognition for remote control, consider this point and
It is always necessary to consider malfunctions due to erroneous recognition. Fourth
In the illustrated embodiment, when remote control by voice is erroneously recognized, conventional remote control by button operation can be used as an alternative means, and the user will not be confused by the erroneous recognition.

In this embodiment, for simplicity, the number of buttons for manual remote control and the number of voice commands for voice remote control are the same, but the present invention is not limited to this. In voice recognition, the recognition rate decreases as the number of words increases, so it is desirable to reduce the number of words as much as possible.For example, in the case of an air conditioner, voice commands can be used with ordinary manual remote control as in the example above. It is desirable to limit the number of buttons to a high number. Things that are used infrequently, such as timer settings, can be done manually and remotely.

Now, let us consider that the user performs remote control using voice. Currently, the user feels that the temperature setting of the air conditioner is too high and feels hot, so he uses the voice remote control transmitter 6 to lower the temperature setting.
Suppose that you say "It's hot" into the microphone. In this case, the voice recognition circuit 6-3 or 7-12 either (a) correctly recognizes it and outputs the command voice information encoded as "hot", or (b) misrecognizes it and outputs, for example, "stop". Either outputs the encoded command voice information, or (C) rejects it because the utterance level is too low to recognize it, or the accuracy of the recognition result is low, and does not output the encoded command voice information. There are three possible cases in which the user is prompted to speak again.

Normally, when inputting data or operating equipment by voice, the user is given guidance or recognition of recognition results using the same voice. For example, a well-known example of this is a bank balance inquiry system using telephone voice.

For this purpose, a speech synthesis circuit is incorporated into the speech recognition device or system equipment.

In the case of this embodiment as well, it is preferable to incorporate the voice synthesis circuit in the voice remote control transmitter 6, the voice remote control receiver 7, or the controlled device 1 from the above-mentioned point of view.

In the embodiments of FIGS. 11 to 14, the speech synthesis circuit 7-
14 was built into the voice remote control receiver 7. This results in
The user can perform remote control by voice in an interactive manner.

In the embodiment of FIG. 11, the state (a) that the voice recognition circuit 7-12 assumes when the previous user utters "It's hot."

For each of (b) and (c), the speech synthesis circuit 7
Consider the synthesized sound uttered in No. 14 and the next action the user takes following it.

After uttering "It's hot," it goes through recognition processing and outputs a synthesized sound suitable for each case. For example, in case of (a), ``Lower the set temperature.'', in case of (b), ``Stop operation.'', and in case of (c), ``Please increase the temperature again.''
shall be.

This synthesized sound causes the user to take the next action. If it is correctly recognized (a), no action is taken against the remote control transmitter or the remotely controlled device. In the case of misrecognition (b), action is taken to correct it. Now, if voice remote control does not have a correction function, the remotely controlled device will malfunction. In the case of re-input (c), the user returns to the beginning and utters "It's hot" again. In the case of the above misrecognition, as a correction function, the synthesized sound in cases (a) and (b) is changed to a question form, for example, in case of (a), ``Do you want to lower the set temperature?J (b) may be transformed into "Do you want to stop driving?" and ask the user for confirmation. In this case, the next time the user answers this question is
The answer will be "no." The utterance of "yes" and "no" will also be confirmed using voice recognition. As mentioned above, the recognition rate of voice recognition is as low as 95%. Therefore, in this example, the probability of correctly controlling the remotely controlled device is 0.9 because voice recognition is performed twice.
(0.95×0.95), which is lower than the original recognition rate.

Moreover, it is troublesome for the user to have to make sounds in two layers as well.

According to this embodiment, manual remote control can replace voice remote control. Therefore, it is possible to correct the previous erroneous recognition by operating a button.

FIG. 15 shows an example of the flow of processing and user behavior in this embodiment. After the user confirms the recognition processing result using the synthesized voice, if there is an erroneous recognition (b), the user can correct it by immediately pressing the "hot" button on the manual remote control transmitter 3. In the case of rejection (C), if re-input is bothersome, the "hot" button may be pressed in the same way.

The speech recognition circuit 7-12 outputs the encoded command speech information as a recognition result to the selection circuit 9. In the example of FIG. 15, if the command voice information is output when voice synthesis is completed, if the user makes a correction by operating a button, the selection circuit 9
There is a high possibility that command voice information and button press information are input at the same time.

Even if they are not simultaneous, the command voice information and the button press information are input to the selection circuit 9 close in time. 6th
In the operation of the selection circuit in the embodiment shown in the figure and the control circuit in the embodiment shown in FIG. 8, for example, the voice recognition circuit 7-12 erroneously recognizes a voice input of "hot" and outputs "stop" command voice information, If the user immediately manually presses the "hot" button to make a correction, there will be an inconvenience that the correction will not be made.

The OR circuit 9 of the selection circuit 9 is activated by the "stop" command voice information.
When the -3 output signal line B becomes high level, the control circuit 2 performs a stop process according to the flowchart of FIG. usually,
The time required for the "stopping process" is approximately one minute, as it includes stopping the power supply to the compressor or fan and monitoring until the motor completely stops rotating.

In other words, once a temporary stop process is performed, the next process, for example,
You will need to wait about a minute for the driving process to be accepted.

Therefore, even if the previous manual correction process, that is, the "hot" button is pressed in a hurry, and the output signal line C of the OR circuit 9-3 of the selection circuit 9 becomes high level, the control circuit 2 will stop the process. Since he is doing so, he will not be able to receive a Uke. In other words, a problem arises in that a correction operation cannot be performed.

A second embodiment of the selection circuit 9 is shown in FIG. 94 is a manual code detection circuit for detecting the code of button press information; 9-
5 is a voice code detection circuit that detects the code of command voice information;
9-6 is a timer circuit that measures a certain period of time after detecting the command voice information, 9-7 is a voice code register that temporarily stores the code of the command voice information, and 9-8 is a command voice that outputs the data of no command voice information. No data circuit 9-9 inputs the contents of the voice code register 9-7 and the contents of the command voice no data circuit 98 to the output of the timer circuit 9-6 and the manual code detection circuit 9-9.
This is a switching circuit that switches under the control of the output of No. 4 and outputs the output to the audio code decoding circuit 9-2.

When the code of the command voice information is output from the voice recognition circuit 7-12. This output is detected by the voice code detection circuit 9-5, and this code is stored in the voice code register 97 at -. Further, at the same time as the detection, the timer circuit 9-6 starts counting a predetermined time. The switching circuit 9-9 is normally in a state of selecting data without command voice and outputting it to the voice code decoding circuit 9-2. When the timer circuit 9-6 finishes counting a certain period of time, the switching circuit 9-9 switches the switch in response to this end signal, and transfers the contents of the voice code register 9-7, that is, the command voice information, to the voice code decoding circuit 9.
-2. If a button is pressed before the timing end signal, this button press information is transmitted to the manual code detection circuit 9-4.
is detected and transmitted to the switching circuit 9-9. At this time, the switching circuit 99 changes over the switch in response to the predetermined time count end signal, and is prohibited from outputting the contents of the voice code register 9-7.

As a result of this operation, when the command voice information is output, it is put on hold for a certain period of time. If a manual operation is performed within this time, this button press information is preferentially transmitted to the control circuit 2 via the manual code decoding circuit 9-1 and the OR circuit 9-3. If there is no button press operation within this time, the command voice information is transferred to the voice code decoding circuit 9-2 and the OR circuit 9-.
3 to the control circuit 2.

According to this embodiment, the above-described inconvenience when making corrections by operating a button immediately after inputting a command voice is eliminated.

Further, although the command voice information of the voice recognition circuit 7-12 is output after the voice synthesis circuit 7-14 outputs the synthesized voice, the present invention is not limited thereto, and may be performed while the voice synthesis circuit 7-14 is outputting the synthesized voice.

Furthermore, although the timer circuit 9-6 started counting by the detection of the speech code detection circuit 9-5, the speech recognition circuit 7-12
It is obvious that the timer circuit 9-6 may be directly instructed to start timing.

The basic idea of this embodiment is that the reliability of button press operations is much higher than that of voice recognition, and therefore, in the case of remote control using voice, conventional remote control using button operations is provided as an alternative means. To provide a function that allows a user to easily and naturally correct an error in voice recognition using conventional button operations when the user notices an error in voice recognition.

FIG. 17 shows a third embodiment of the selection circuit 9. In this embodiment, the selection circuit is constructed by software of a microprocessor. In the figure, 9-10 is a code register that temporarily stores code data of button press information or command voice information, 9-11 is a microprocessor, 9-12 is an output register that holds output data to the control circuit 2, and 9- 14
an OR circuit 9 which takes the logical sum of the write signals of each code data and transmits this to the write signal terminal of the code register 9-12 and the interrupt signal terminal of the microprocessor 9-11;
-13 is a common data bus that connects the input/output terminals of each register and the data terminal of the microprocessor 9-11.

The code of the button press information and the code of the command voice information are respectively output from the manual remote control receiver 4 and the voice remote control receiver 7 together with the write signal, and are written into the code register 9-10.

FIG. 18 shows a processing flowchart of the microprocessor 9-11. When the code data is written into the code register 9-10, interrupt processing (a) is performed. Now, the code data output by each receiver and the corresponding output data are designed as shown in FIG. The upper two bits of the code data are an identifier indicating whether the code data is from the manual remote control receiver 4 or the audio remote control receiver 7, and in the case of "11", the data is from the manual remote control receiver 4. "00" indicates that the data is from the voice remote control receiver 7. The lower three bits indicate the content of each information and are 0, which is common to each receiver output.
Code data is sent to the microprocessor 9-11 by interrupt processing.
Based on the previous identifier, the lower three bits of code data are transferred to the manual code memory or voice code memory in the microprocessor. The main program (b) of the microprocessor always monitors the data in the code memory and sets predetermined data in the output register 9-12 based on the data transferred in the interrupt process (a). In the case of audio code data, a timer operates after the code data is read, and after a certain period of time, predetermined output data is written into the output register 9-12. If manual code data is read while the timer is counting time, the voice code data is discarded and predetermined output data is written to the output register 9-12 based on the manual code data. In other words, manual code data has priority.

In this embodiment, unlike FIG. 16, the selection function is configured by software, so the degree of freedom in design is high. For example, a fixed clock time can be made programmable, and the above-mentioned time can be changed depending on the type of specified audio information. For example, for something that takes a long time to complete, such as a "stop process," and requires even greater reliability, the accuracy of manual correction can be increased by lengthening the time. Further, for cases where the recognition rate is high and manual correction is not necessary most of the time, the control circuit 2 can be designed to immediately perform predetermined remote control processing in a short time.

Furthermore, when the types of information increase, the detection circuit 9-4.9-7 and the decoding circuit 9-1.9-2 in FIG.
However, in this embodiment, there is no need to change the hardware, and it is only necessary to change the microprocessor program.

In this embodiment, the code register 9-10 and the output register 9-12 are installed separately from the microprocessor 9-11, but these registers are normally connected to the microprocessor.
Built-in input registers or output registers may be used.

In the above embodiment, the manual remote control transmitter 3 and the audio remote control transmitter 6 have been explained as separate units, but considering the remote control by voice and the function of manually correcting it, at least they are used as microphones for collecting voice. It is desirable that buttons for manual operation be located in the same housing.

FIG. 20 shows a fourth embodiment of the present invention, in which the manual remote control transmitter 3 of FIG. 3 and the audio remote control transmitter 6 of FIG. 4 are housed in the same housing. In the figure, 111.11-2.11
-3 is a push button, a key matrix circuit, and an encode circuit, which are the same as the push button 3-1, key matrix circuit 32, and encode circuit 3-3 shown in FIG. 3, respectively. 114.11-5.11-6 is a microphone, an amplifier circuit, and a voice recognition circuit, which is similar to the microphone 6 in Fig. 4.
1. It is the same as the amplifier circuit 6-2 and the voice recognition circuit 6-3. 11-7 is a voice synthesis circuit for performing voice remote control in an interactive manner, and is similar to the voice synthesis circuit 7- in FIG.
It is the same as 14. 11-8 is a speech synthesis circuit 11-7
This is a speaker that emits the synthesized voice output from the . 119
is a selection circuit that selects one of the encoded button press information outputted by the encoding circuit 11-3 and the encoded command voice information outputted by the voice recognition circuit 11-6;
This is the same selection circuit as shown in FIGS. 6, 16, and 17. 1110, 11-11 is a transmitting circuit, infrared LED
3, the transmitting circuit 3-4, the infrared LED 3-5,
Alternatively, it is the same as the transmitting circuit 6-4 and the infrared LED shown in FIG. Reference numeral 11 denotes a remote control transmitter, which is composed of the above-mentioned parts and transmits remote control processing by button operation or voice. 12 is a remote control receiver that receives a remote control signal and outputs it to the control circuit 2 of the remotely controlled device l. 114° 112 and 12-3 are a bin photodiode, an amplifier circuit, and a receiving circuit, which are the bin photodiode 4-1, the amplifier circuit 4-2, and the receiving circuit 4 in FIG.
-3 or bin photodiode 7-1 in Fig. 4
, the amplifier circuit 7-2, and the receiving circuit 7-3.

12-4 is a remote control signal output terminal.

In this embodiment, it is the selected remote control signal to be input to the sub-leg circuit 2 that is optically transmitted. In this embodiment, unlike the embodiment shown in FIG. 1, selection of button press information and command voice information is performed by a selection circuit 11-9 in the remote control transmitter 11, and either one is used as a remote control signal to control the remote control. The signal is optically transmitted to the receiver.

According to this embodiment, there is no malfunction due to light interference, which was a problem in the embodiment of FIG.
4 and the push button 11-1 are in the same housing, it is easy to correct the misrecognition using the push button. Also, Figure 1,
Compared to the embodiment shown in FIG. 4, only one system is required for the transmission circuit for optical transmission, the infrared LED, the bin photodiode, the amplifier circuit, and the reception circuit, so a significant cost reduction can be expected.

FIG. 21 shows a ninth embodiment of the present invention, in which the manual remote control transmitter of FIG. 3 and the audio remote control transmitter of FIG. 1O are housed in the same housing. 11-12.1113゜11-14
are a modulation circuit, a high frequency output circuit, and an antenna, and the 10th
This is the same as the modulation circuit 6-100, high-frequency output circuit 6-11, and antenna 6-12 shown in the figure.

In this embodiment, the button press information is directly optically transmitted, but the command voice is modulated and transmitted on a carrier wave, and then received by the voice remote control receiver and voice recognized to become command voice information. The voice recognition circuit, which consumes a large amount of power, is built into the voice remote control receiver 7, and the selection circuit is also built into the remotely controlled device l, so the power consumption of the remote control transmitter 11 is reduced to
This can be reduced compared to the embodiment shown in the figure.

Note that the audio remote transmitter to be incorporated into the same housing is not limited to the one shown in Fig. 10, but also those shown in Figs. 11, 12, 13,
The one shown in FIG. 14 may also be used.

〔Effect of the invention〕

According to the present invention, (1) there are two remote control means, a button operation remote control transmitter and receiver, and an audio remote control transmitter and receiver, and one remote control signal from each remote control means; By having a selection means for selecting one, remote control can be freely performed from either remote control means.

(2) Voice recognition becomes impossible due to loud ambient noise, etc.
If voice remote control is not available, button-operated remote control can be used instead.

(3) If the voice recognition in the voice remote control means is incorrectly recognized due to the contamination of ambient noise, etc., and it becomes necessary to correct the contents of the voice remote control, this can be corrected using the button-operated remote control means. can.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Fig. 1 is a block diagram of an embodiment of the present invention, Fig. 2 is a block diagram of a part related to remote control of a household electric appliance that can be remotely controlled manually, and Fig. 3 is a block diagram of a conventional manual remote control. A block diagram of a transmitter and a receiver, FIG. 4 is a block diagram of an embodiment of the audio remote control transmitter and receiver of the present invention, FIG. 5 is a perspective view of a manual remote control transmitter, and FIG. A selection circuit diagram of the invention, FIG. 7 is a truth value explanatory diagram of a manual code decoding circuit and a voice code decoding circuit of the invention, FIG.
9 is a block diagram of the second embodiment of the voice remote control transmitter and receiver of the present invention, and FIG. 10 is the voice remote control transmitter and receiver of the present invention. 11 is a block diagram of a fourth embodiment of the voice remote control transmitter and receiver of the present invention, and FIG. 12 is a block diagram of the fourth embodiment of the voice remote control transmitter and receiver of the present invention. FIG. 13 is a block diagram of the sixth embodiment of the voice remote control transmitter and receiver of the present invention, and FIG. 14 is a block diagram of the voice remote control transmitter and receiver of the present invention. FIG. 15 is a flowchart showing the flow of voice remote control of the present invention; FIG. 16 is a block diagram of the second embodiment of the selection circuit of the present invention; FIG. 17 is a block diagram of the second embodiment of the selection circuit of the present invention. 18 is a microprocessor processing flowchart of FIG. 17, FIG. 19 is an explanatory diagram of the correspondence between code data and output data of the embodiment of FIG. 17, and FIG. 20 is a block diagram of the third embodiment of the selection circuit of FIG. 21 is a block diagram of a ninth embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 21 is a block diagram of a ninth embodiment of the present invention. 1...Remotely controlled device 2...Control circuit 3...Manual remote control transmitter 4...Manual remote control receiver 6... -Audio remote control transmitter 7...Audio remote control receiver 9...Selection circuit 3-1.11-1...Push button 6-1.11-
4...Microphone 7-12.11-6...
・・・Speech Recognition Circuit 7-14.11-7・・・・・・Speech Synthesis Circuit￥J2 Kasumi Close 6 Diagram 5-6 (α) Punishment ε Diagram (b) Punishment [2 shoes 〒15 fig. 〒1″i′Figure i1ode■ (′″) Ecoco

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A manual remote control means that enables remote control by button operation, an audio remote control means that enables remote control by voice, and one remote control from remote control signals from each of the above means. A remote control system comprising a selection means for selecting a signal. 2. The remote control system according to claim 1, wherein the voice remote control means includes voice recognition means. 3. The remote control system according to claim 2, wherein the selection means selects a remote control signal output from the manual remote control means with priority. 4. The remote control method according to claim 3, wherein the priority function continues for a predetermined period of time after the end of the recognition operation of the voice recognition means. 5. The remote control method according to claim 3, wherein the priority function can be set or canceled. 6. The remote control method according to claim 3, wherein each of the remote control means adds an identifier to the remote control signal outputted. 7. The remote control method according to claim 4, wherein the recognition result of the voice recognition means is temporarily put on hold. 8. The remote control system according to claim 2, wherein the manual remote control means comprises a manual remote control transmitter and a manual remote control receiver, and the voice remote control means comprises a voice remote control receiver and a voice remote control transmitter. A remote control system that consists of multiple transmitters and transmitters, and signals between each transmitter and receiver are transmitted wirelessly. 9. The remote control system according to claim 8, wherein the manual remote control transmitter and/or the audio remote control transmitter are in the same housing. 10. The remote control system according to claim 8, wherein wireless transmission between each transmitter and receiver is performed using carrier waves having different physical properties. 11. The remote control method according to claim 10, wherein the signal transmission between one transmitter and receiver is performed by sound waves. 12. The remote control method according to claim 10, wherein signal transmission between one transmitter and receiver is performed by radio waves. 13. The remote control method according to claim 12, wherein the transmitted signal is an audio signal. 14. The remote control method according to claim 11, wherein the sound wave includes a plurality of frequency components that are disjoint with each other. 15. In the remote control method according to claim 8, the remote-controlled device is provided with a place for storing the manual remote control transmitter, a detection means for detecting the storage, and a notification means for notifying the storage. Remote control method. 16. The remote control method according to claim 2, wherein the push button to be operated and/or the microphone for collecting audio are provided in the same housing. 17. The remote control method according to claim 2, wherein the function that can be remotely controlled by voice can also be remotely controlled by button operation. 18. The remote control system according to claim 2, further comprising a voice synthesis means, and in which the operation result of the voice recognition means is announced by the voice synthesis means. 19. In the remote control system according to claim 13, the voice remote control transmitter is provided with a power switch, the voice remote control receiver is provided with a carrier wave detection means, and the voice recognition means is controlled by the output of the carrier wave detection means. Remote control method to control. 20. The remote control system according to claim 13, wherein the audio remote control transmitter is provided with identification signal generation means for generating an identification signal, and the audio remote control receiver is provided with identification signal detection means for detecting the identification signal. A remote control method for controlling the voice recognition means by the output of the identification signal detection means. 21. The remote control system according to claim 19, wherein the power switch is driven by a timer circuit.