Patents by Inventor Christopher Fougner

Christopher Fougner has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Patent number: 10769533
    Abstract: Disclosed are systems and methods that implement efficient engines for computation-intensive tasks such as neural network deployment. Various embodiments of the invention provide for high-throughput batching that increases throughput of streaming data in high-traffic applications, such as real-time speech transcription. In embodiments, throughput is increased by dynamically assembling into batches and processing together user requests that randomly arrive at unknown timing such that not all the data is present at once at the time of batching. Some embodiments allow for performing steaming classification using pre-processing. The gains in performance allow for more efficient use of a compute engine and drastically reduce the cost of deploying large neural networks at scale, while meeting strict application requirements and adding relatively little computational latency so as to maintain a satisfactory application experience.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 13, 2016
    Date of Patent: September 8, 2020
    Assignee: Baidu USA LLC
    Inventors: Christopher Fougner, Bryan Catanzaro
  • Patent number: 10657955
    Abstract: Described herein are systems and methods to identify and address sources of bias in an end-to-end speech model. In one or more embodiments, the end-to-end model may be a recurrent neural network with two 2D-convolutional input layers, followed by multiple bidirectional recurrent layers and one fully connected layer before a softmax layer. In one or more embodiments, the network is trained end-to-end using the CTC loss function to directly predict sequences of characters from log spectrograms of audio. With optimized recurrent layers and training together with alignment information, some unwanted bias induced by using purely forward only recurrences may be removed in a deployed model.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 30, 2018
    Date of Patent: May 19, 2020
    Assignee: Baidu USA LLC
    Inventors: Eric Battenberg, Rewon Child, Adam Coates, Christopher Fougner, Yashesh Gaur, Jiaji Huang, Heewoo Jun, Ajay Kannan, Markus Kliegl, Atul Kumar, Hairong Liu, Vinay Rao, Sanjeev Satheesh, David Seetapun, Anuroop Sriram, Zhenyao Zhu
  • Patent number: 10540961
    Abstract: Described herein are systems and methods for creating and using Convolutional Recurrent Neural Networks (CRNNs) for small-footprint keyword spotting (KWS) systems. Inspired by the large-scale state-of-the-art speech recognition systems, in embodiments, the strengths of convolutional layers to utilize the structure in the data in time and frequency domains are combined with recurrent layers to utilize context for the entire processed frame. The effect of architecture parameters were examined to determine preferred model embodiments given the performance versus model size tradeoff. Various training strategies are provided to improve performance. In embodiments, using only ˜230 k parameters and yielding acceptably low latency, a CRNN model embodiment demonstrated high accuracy and robust performance in a wide range of environments.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 28, 2017
    Date of Patent: January 21, 2020
    Assignee: Baidu USA LLC
    Inventors: Sercan Arik, Markus Kliegl, Rewon Child, Joel Hestness, Andrew Gibiansky, Christopher Fougner, Ryan Prenger, Adam Coates
  • Patent number: 10332509
    Abstract: Embodiments of end-to-end deep learning systems and methods are disclosed to recognize speech of vastly different languages, such as English or Mandarin Chinese. In embodiments, the entire pipelines of hand-engineered components are replaced with neural networks, and the end-to-end learning allows handling a diverse variety of speech including noisy environments, accents, and different languages. Using a trained embodiment and an embodiment of a batch dispatch technique with GPUs in a data center, an end-to-end deep learning system can be inexpensively deployed in an online setting, delivering low latency when serving users at scale.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 21, 2016
    Date of Patent: June 25, 2019
    Assignee: Baidu USA, LLC
    Inventors: Bryan Catanzaro, Jingdong Chen, Mike Chrzanowski, Erich Elsen, Jesse Engel, Christopher Fougner, Xu Han, Awni Hannun, Ryan Prenger, Sanjeev Satheesh, Shubhabrata Sengupta, Dani Yogatama, Chong Wang, Jun Zhan, Zhenyao Zhu, Dario Amodei
  • Patent number: 10319374
    Abstract: Embodiments of end-to-end deep learning systems and methods are disclosed to recognize speech of vastly different languages, such as English or Mandarin Chinese. In embodiments, the entire pipelines of hand-engineered components are replaced with neural networks, and the end-to-end learning allows handling a diverse variety of speech including noisy environments, accents, and different languages. Using a trained embodiment and an embodiment of a batch dispatch technique with GPUs in a data center, an end-to-end deep learning system can be inexpensively deployed in an online setting, delivering low latency when serving users at scale.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 21, 2016
    Date of Patent: June 11, 2019
    Assignee: Baidu USA, LLC
    Inventors: Bryan Catanzaro, Jingdong Chen, Mike Chrzanowski, Erich Elsen, Jesse Engel, Christopher Fougner, Xu Han, Awni Hannun, Ryan Prenger, Sanjeev Satheesh, Shubhabrata Sengupta, Dani Yogatama, Chong Wang, Jun Zhan, Zhenyao Zhu, Dario Amodei
  • Publication number: 20180261213
    Abstract: Described herein are systems and methods for creating and using Convolutional Recurrent Neural Networks (CRNNs) for small-footprint keyword spotting (KWS) systems. Inspired by the large-scale state-of-the-art speech recognition systems, in embodiments, the strengths of convolutional layers to utilize the structure in the data in time and frequency domains are combined with recurrent layers to utilize context for the entire processed frame. The effect of architecture parameters were examined to determine preferred model embodiments given the performance versus model size tradeoff. Various training strategies are provided to improve performance. In embodiments, using only ˜230 k parameters and yielding acceptably low latency, a CRNN model embodiment demonstrated high accuracy and robust performance in a wide range of environments.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 28, 2017
    Publication date: September 13, 2018
    Applicant: Baidu USA LLC
    Inventors: Sercan Arik, Markus Kliegl, Rewon Child, Joel Hestness, Andrew Gibiansky, Christopher Fougner, Ryan Prenger, Adam Coates
  • Publication number: 20180247643
    Abstract: Described herein are systems and methods to identify and address sources of bias in an end-to-end speech model. In one or more embodiments, the end-to-end model may be a recurrent neural network with two 2D-convolutional input layers, followed by multiple bidirectional recurrent layers and one fully connected layer before a softmax layer. In one or more embodiments, the network is trained end-to-end using the CTC loss function to directly predict sequences of characters from log spectrograms of audio. With optimized recurrent layers and training together with alignment information, some unwanted bias induced by using purely forward only recurrences may be removed in a deployed model.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 30, 2018
    Publication date: August 30, 2018
    Applicant: Baidu USA LLC
    Inventors: Eric BATTENBERG, Rewon CHILD, Adam COATES, Christopher FOUGNER, Yashesh GAUR, Jiaji HUANG, Heewoo JUN, Ajay KANNAN, Markus KLIEGL, Atul KUMAR, Hairong LIU, Vinay RAO, Sanjeev SATHEESH, David SEETAPUN, Anuroop SRIRAM, Zhenyao ZHU
  • Publication number: 20170148431
    Abstract: Embodiments of end-to-end deep learning systems and methods are disclosed to recognize speech of vastly different languages, such as English or Mandarin Chinese. In embodiments, the entire pipelines of hand-engineered components are replaced with neural networks, and the end-to-end learning allows handling a diverse variety of speech including noisy environments, accents, and different languages. Using a trained embodiment and an embodiment of a batch dispatch technique with GPUs in a data center, an end-to-end deep learning system can be inexpensively deployed in an online setting, delivering low latency when serving users at scale.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 21, 2016
    Publication date: May 25, 2017
    Applicant: Baidu USA LLC
    Inventors: Bryan Catanzaro, Jingdong Chen, Mike Chrzanowski, Erich Elsen, Jesse Engel, Christopher Fougner, Xu Han, Awni Hannun, Ryan Prenger, Sanjeev Satheesh, Shubhabrata Sengupta, Dani Yogatama, Chong Wang, Jun Zhan, Zhenyao Zhu, Dario Amodei
  • Publication number: 20170148433
    Abstract: Embodiments of end-to-end deep learning systems and methods are disclosed to recognize speech of vastly different languages, such as English or Mandarin Chinese. In embodiments, the entire pipelines of hand-engineered components are replaced with neural networks, and the end-to-end learning allows handling a diverse variety of speech including noisy environments, accents, and different languages. Using a trained embodiment and an embodiment of a batch dispatch technique with GPUs in a data center, an end-to-end deep learning system can be inexpensively deployed in an online setting, delivering low latency when serving users at scale.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 21, 2016
    Publication date: May 25, 2017
    Applicant: Baidu USA LLC
    Inventors: Bryan Catanzaro, Jingdong Chen, Mike Chrzanowski, Erich Elsen, Jesse Engel, Christopher Fougner, Xu Han, Awni Hannun, Ryan Prenger, Sanjeev Satheesh, Shubhabrata Sengupta, Dani Yogatama, Chong Wang, Jun Zhan, Zhenyao Zhu, Dario Amodei
  • Publication number: 20170068889
    Abstract: Disclosed are systems and methods that implement efficient engines for computation-intensive tasks such as neural network deployment. Various embodiments of the invention provide for high-throughput batching that increases throughput of streaming data in high-traffic applications, such as real-time speech transcription. In embodiments, throughput is increased by dynamically assembling into batches and processing together user requests that randomly arrive at unknown timing such that not all the data is present at once at the time of batching. Some embodiments allow for performing steaming classification using pre-processing. The gains in performance allow for more efficient use of a compute engine and drastically reduce the cost of deploying large neural networks at scale, while meeting strict application requirements and adding relatively little computational latency so as to maintain a satisfactory application experience.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 13, 2016
    Publication date: March 9, 2017
    Applicant: Baidu USA LLC
    Inventors: Christopher Fougner, Bryan Catanzaro