Personalized speech output for communication devices

项目摘要 这个项目包括开发和测试一个连接的文本到语音（TTS）合成系统 名为ModelTalker和名为InvTool的软件，该软件指导个人创建个人合成 声音与ModelTalker一起使用。整个系统旨在满足增强型和 依赖语音合成进行通信的替代通信（AAC）设备用户。在 除了改进的自然度和可理解性，ModelTalker和InvTool软件还独特地提供了 个人拼接合成语音的快速开发能力。有了InvTool， 那些有可能失去说话能力的ALS患者可以记录自己的讲话， 为ModelTalker TTS系统提供个人合成语音。这种语音银行功能已经在 成功地治疗了许多ALS患者。 第二阶段STTR申请寻求资金，以完成ModelTalker和InvTool技术的转让 从研究实验室发展到商业化的小企业。二期 活动将集中在InvTool和自动构建高度可理解的个人信息的过程中。 为ModelTalker合成声音具体而言，我们第二阶段的具体目标是： 目标1：增强InvTool的可用性。我们已经确定了InvTool的几个具体改进 该程序将（a）提高一般易用性，（B）提高视障用户的可访问性，以及（c） 简化语音录制过程，特别是对于年轻用户和词汇量有限的用户， 识字能力。 目标2：实现和测试新的语音处理技术，以提高我们的自动语音识别系统的鲁棒性。 语音构建过程，同时减少语音数据库所需的存储要求。 目标3：评估自动创建的语音的质量（可懂度和可接受性）， 通过多次演讲招募的可以从这项技术中受益的个人的代表性样本 全国各地的诊所。

Project Summary This project encompasses development and testing of a concatenative text-to-speech (TTS) synthesis system known as ModelTalker and software called InvTool which guides individuals in creating personal synthetic voices for use with ModelTalker. The overall system is intended to be of particular interest to Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) device users who depend upon speech synthesis for communication. In addition to improved naturalness and intelligibility, the ModelTalker and InvTool software uniquely offer the capability of rapid development of personal concatenative synthesis voices. With InvTool, individuals such as those with ALS who are at risk of losing the ability to speak can record their own speech for conversion to a personal synthetic voice for the ModelTalker TTS system. This voice banking capability has already been used successfully by a number of ALS patients. This Phase II STTR application seeks funding to complete transfer of the ModelTalker and InvTool technology from the research laboratory in which it was developed to a small business for commercialization. Phase II activities will focus on InvTool and the process of automatically constructing highly intelligible personal synthetic voices for ModelTalker. In particular, our specific aims for Phase II are: Aim 1 ¿ Enhance the usability of InvTool. We have identified several specific improvements to the InvTool program that will (a) improve general ease of use, (b) improve accessibility for visually impaired users, and (c) simplify the speech recording process, especially for young users and users with more limited vocabulary and literacy skills. Aim 2 ¿ Implement and test novel speech processing techniques to improve the robustness of our automatic voice construction process while reducing the storage requirements needed for the speech database. Aim 3 ¿ Evaluate the quality (intelligibility and acceptability) of automatically created voices for a representative sample of individuals who can benefit from this technology recruited through multiple speech clinics around the country.