Presently, voice recognition systems are becoming popular with consumers of conventional computers due to the availability of continuous speech recognition systems. These applications are generally tailored for speaker-dependent voice recognition. That is, to provide a high degree of accuracy in the conversion of voice to a textual message, the continuous speech recognition system must be trained by a particular speaker's voice. This is generally performed by having the speaker read a canned message of several paragraphs, which is then recorded and analyzed by the speech recognition system to develop a set of statistical models of the speaker's voice. These models are later used by the continuous speech recognition system to convert the speaker's voice signals into a textual message.
Although the present approach provides a relatively high degree of accuracy in the process converting voice to a textual message, a need for higher degrees of accuracy approaching a flawless conversion is desirable. Present continuous speech recognition systems suffer several disadvantages in reaching a flawless conversion standard. For example, present algorithms rely heavily on the spectral envelope features of the analyzed speech signals to generate a textual message equivalent. This is disadvantageous because such a method fails to account for other features in speech such as the shape of the speech spectrum, which may be helpful in improving the accuracy of voice conversion. Additionally, present algorithms are not well adapted to recognize speech at a high degree of accuracy from speakers who have not trained the system with their particular voice characteristics. The availability of speaker-independent voice recognition systems would be especially useful in radio communications systems that are intended for transmitting caller initiated messages to selective call radios such as, for example, pagers.
Accordingly, what is needed is a voice recognition system that converts voice signals to a textual message at a higher degree of accuracy than provided by prior art voice recognition systems. It would be desirable for the voice recognition system to convert voice signals that originate from either speaker-dependent or speaker-independent voice signals. In addition, it would be desirable that the voice recognition system be adapted to operate in a radio communication system that translates caller initiated voice messages to textual messages, and that transmits the textual messages to one or more selective call radios.