Abstract: A vehicle includes a cabin, an internal-loudspeaker set an external-microphone set, and a signal processor that filters a raw audio signal that has been received by the external-microphone set broadcasts the resulting filtered audio signal into the cabin using the internal-loudspeaker set.

Abstract: A vehicle control system executing a voice control system for facilitating voice-based dialog with a driver to enable the driver or autonomous vehicle to control certain operational aspects of an autonomous vehicle is provided. Using environmental and sensor input, the vehicle control system can select optimal routes for operating the vehicle in an autonomous mode or choose a preferred operational mode. Occupants of the autonomous vehicle can change a destination, route or driving mode by engaging with the vehicle control system in a dialog enabled by the voice control system.

Abstract: A method that includes receiving information indicative of a location of a vehicle. The vehicle has an occupied-vehicle state that includes an occupant state. This occupant state represents the state of one or more occupants within the vehicle. The method further includes receiving information indicative of this occupant state. The information indicative of the occupant state results from an observation by a detector that is in communication with an infotainment system within the vehicle. The method continues with using both the information indicative of the occupant state and the information indicative of the location to select an advertisement from a database of advertisements. This selected advertisement is one that is ultimately for presentation to the occupant.

Abstract: A voice-based system is configured to process commands in a flexible format, for example, in which a wake word does not necessarily have to occur at the beginning of an utterance. As in natural speech, the system being addressed may be named within or at the end of a spoken utterance rather than at the beginning, or depending on the context, may not be named at all.

Abstract: A vehicle system for classifying spoken utterance within a vehicle cabin as one of system-directed and non-system directed, the system may include at least one microphone configured to detect at least one audio signal from at least one occupant of a vehicle, and a processor programmed to receive the at least one audio signal including at least one acoustic utterance, determine a number of vehicle occupants based at least in part on the at least one signal, determine a probability that the utterance is system directed based at least in part one the utterance and the number of vehicle occupants, determine a classification threshold based at least in part on the number of vehicle occupants, compare the classification threshold to the probability to determine whether the at least one acoustic utterance is one of a system directed utterance and a non-system directed utterance.

Abstract: A vehicle gaming system for a vehicle includes one or more computing devices configured to obtain body gesture data indicative of one or more recognized poses of a user of a video game; obtain speech data indicative of one or more recognized words spoken by the user in a passenger cabin of the vehicle; generate a multimodal gaming input by combining the body gesture data and the speech data; identify one or more game commands for the video game being played from a game command datastore based on the multimodal gaming input; and transmit the one or more game commands to a remote gaming server to obtain gaming codes associated with the one or more game commands to cause the video game to perform an action associated with the one or more game commands.

Abstract: Touring circuitry for managing an immersion tour as a vehicle traverses a path through a touring theatre receives location information and provides control signals to an augmented-reality system based on a location of the vehicle in the touring theater. The control signals cause the augmented-reality system to stimulate at least two sensory inputs of a passenger.

Abstract: An automotive assistant that is connected to microphones and loudspeakers that are associated with different seats in a passenger vehicle includes a dialog manager that is configured to initiate a dialog based on an utterance received at a first one of the microphones and to advance that dialog based on an utterance received from another of the microphones.

Abstract: A vehicle defines an interior space and an exterior space. Within the vehicle are internal microphones that are disposed to capture an acoustic event that originated in an origination space, which is either the interior space or the exterior space. An infotainment system includes circuitry that forms a head unit having an acoustic-signal processor that is configured to receive, from the microphones, a sound vector indicative of the acoustic event and to identify the origination space based at least in part on the sound vector.

Abstract: A method for applying a watermark signal to a speech signal to prevent unauthorized use of speech signals, the method may include receiving an original speech signal; determining a corresponding spectrogram of the original speech signal; selecting a phase sequence of fixed frame length and uniform distribution; and generating an encoded watermark signal based on the corresponding spectrogram and phase sequence.

Abstract: A biometric corroborator receives an enhanced sound file, a vehicular data provided by a vehicle, and telemetry data provided by the vehicle to a telematics server. It then uses these to corroborate each other before deciding whether to authenticate a proposed transaction.

Abstract: An automotive processing unit includes an infotainment system having a speech interface, an application suite comprising one or more spatially-cognizant applications, and an automotive assistant that is configured to execute one or more of the spatially-cognizant applications. The speech interface is configured to receive a navigation announcement from a navigator and a touring announcement from one of the spatially-cognizant applications and, in response, to cause a spoken announcement to be made audible in a vehicle's cabin through a loudspeaker. The spoken announcement comprising content from at least one of the touring announcement and the navigation announcement.

Abstract: A method for applying a watermark signal to a speech signal to prevent unauthorized use of speech signals, the method may include receiving an original speech signal; determining a corresponding spectrogram of the original speech signal; selecting a phase sequence of fixed frame length and uniform distribution; and generating an encoded watermark signal based on the corresponding spectrogram and phase sequence.

Abstract: A hearing application for a vehicle audio system may include at least one speaker configured to play playback content, and at least one hearing application programmed to receive optimization parameters from a hearing device within the vehicle, the optimization parameters including signal processing parameters specific to the hearing device, apply the optimization parameters to the playback content, and transmit the playback content for playback by one of the hearing device and/or at least one speaker.

Abstract: A contextual answering system for processing a user spoken utterance and providing a response to the user spoken utterance may include a vehicle head unit configured to receive microphone signals indicative of a user utterance; and a processor programed to receive data indicative of a vehicle state, receive the user spoken utterance, perform semantic analysis on the user spoken utterance based at least in part on a context of the user spoken utterance and vehicle state, select a knowledge base as a source for information regarding the user spoken utterance based on the semantic analysis; and provide a response to the user spoken utterance from the selected knowledge base to the vehicle head unit.

Abstract: While current voice assistants can respond to voice requests, creating smarter assistants that leverage location, past requests, and user data to enhance responses to future requests and to provide robust data about locations is desirable. A method for enhancing a geolocation database (“database”) associates a user-initiated triggering event with a location in a database by sensing user position and orientation within the vehicle and a position and orientation of the vehicle. The triggering event is detected by sensors arranged within a vehicle with respect to the user. The method determines a point of interest (“POI”) near the location based on the user-initiated triggering event. The method, responsive to the user-initiated triggering event, updates the database based on information related to the user-initiated triggering event at an entry of the database associated with the POI. The database and voice assistants can leverage the enhanced data about the POI for future requests.

Abstract: Provided are a system and method of input to a computer in a vehicle. An electronic communication is formed between a first electronic device and a display of a second electronic device that is viewable by a user from a location in the vehicle, including providing by the first electronic device a first input mode for the second electronic device. A multimodal application is executed that permits the user to interact with the display of the second electronic device by a combination of the first input mode and at least one second input mode for the second electronic device. The combination of the first input mode and the at least one second input mode controls the display of the first electronic device.

Abstract: A method for a user device, including receiving a first acoustic input of a user speaking a wake-up word in the target language; providing a first acoustic feature derived from the first acoustic input to an acoustic model stored on the user device to obtain a first sequence of speech units corresponding to the wake-up word spoken by the user in the target language, the acoustic model trained on a corpus of training data in a source language different than the target language; receiving a second acoustic input including the wake-up word in the target language; providing a second acoustic feature derived from the second acoustic input to the acoustic model to obtain a second sequence of speech units corresponding to the wake-up word in the target language; and comparing the first and second sequences of speech units to recognize the wake-up word in the target language.

Abstract: In a parked vehicle, a head unit operating in low-power mode draws attention to a living being in a cabin of a parked vehicle. It does so by using a microphone to monitor said cabin for out-of-domain sounds, detecting a signal originating within said cabin, said signal being an acoustic signal that is representative of an out-of-domain sound, classifying said acoustic signal as being indicative of the existence of the living being within said cabin of said vehicle, and sending an alert to a first person.

Abstract: A system for interacting with an audio stream to obtain lyric information, control playback of the audio stream, and control aspects of the audio stream. In some instances, end users can request that the audio stream play with a lead vocal track or without a lead vocal track. Obtaining lyric information includes receiving via a text to speech module an audio playback of the lyric information.