Abstract: A motor includes a stator and a rotor having drive permanent magnets and a rotary shaft. The stator supports a core with coils wound thereon and includes a base plate. The base plate is formed with a resin, and is composed of a core supporting section that supports the core, a shaft supporting section that rotatably supports the rotary shaft, and attachment sections for attaching the motor to an apparatus. The core supporting section, the shaft supporting section and the attachment sections of the base plate are formed in one piece.

Abstract: The present invention relates to a voice output apparatus capable of, in response to a particular stimulus, stopping outputting a voice and outputting a reaction. The voice output apparatus is capable of outputting a voice in a natural manner. A rule-based synthesizer 24 produces a synthesized voice and outputs it. For example, when a synthesized voice “Where is an exit” was produced and outputting of the synthesized voice data has proceeded until “Where is an e” has been output, if a user taps a robot, then a reaction generator 30 determines, by referring to a reaction database 31, that a reaction voice “Ouch!” should be output in response to being tapped. The reaction generator 30 then controls an output controller 27 so as to stop outputting the synthesized voice “Where is an exit?” and output the reaction voice “Ouch!”.

Abstract: A motor with brush includes a rotor having a rotary shaft and a commutator retained at the rotary shaft, two brush sections each having a plane surface in an axial direction of the rotor and in sliding contact with the commutator, and two brush terminals that are integral with the brush sections, respectively. Each of the brush terminals includes a brush connecting section formed in the axial direction of the rotary shaft and having a plane surface that connects to the plane surface of each of the corresponding brush sections, and a bent section that is bent in a direction generally orthogonal to the axial direction of the rotary shaft. The bent section restricts and fixedly positions the brush terminal and the brush section, and the brush terminals connect to external connection members that are provided outside the motor and inside an outer circumference of the motor.

Abstract: A motor has a rotatably supported rotor shaft and a rotator that rotates together with the rotor shaft. The rotator includes a shaft insertion section that has an internal peripheral surface and a specified length in an axial direction in which the rotor shaft is inserted. The internal peripheral surface has a first internal peripheral surface of a small diameter and a second internal peripheral surface having a diameter slightly greater than that of the first internal peripheral surface. The first internal peripheral surface engages the rotor shaft under a pressure, and the second internal peripheral surface is slightly spaced a distance from the rotor shaft, such that a gap is created between the second internal peripheral surface and the rotor shaft.

Abstract: The present invention is intended to provide a text-to-speech synthesis apparatus, including a storage for storing phoneme data of a plurality of speakers; a selector for selecting one of the plurality of speakers in accordance with an operation performed by a user; a searcher for searching the storage for phoneme data of the speaker selected by the selector; a text-to-speech synthesis processor for linking the phoneme data of the speaker retrieved by the searcher to convert input data into a synthetic speech; and a fee-charge controller for controlling a fee-charge operation for the user in accordance with the phoneme data selected by the selector. Consequently, the user can perform text-to-speech synthesis on the desired input data such as drama data by use of the obtained phoneme data.

Abstract: The text format of input data is checked, and is converted into a system-manipulated format. It is further determined if the input data is in an HTML or e-mail format using tags, heading information, and the like. The converted data is divided into blocks in a simple manner such that elements in the blocks can be checked based on repetition of predetermined character patterns. Each block section is tagged with a tag indicating a block. The data divided into blocks is parsed based on tags, character patterns, etc., and is structured. A table in text is also parsed, and is segmented into cells. Finally, tree-structured data having a hierarchical structure is generated based on the sentence-structured data. A sentence-extraction template paired with the tree-structured data is used to extract sentences.

Abstract: A lateral pressure mechanism for a motor includes a rotor shaft rotatively supported by a bearing. A frame surrounds the bearing and the frame has an inner side. A slip ring is disposed on the inner side of the frame and positioned around the rotor shaft. The slip ring includes slide portions against which an outer circumferential surface of the rotor shaft abuts and an engaging portion to prevent the slip ring from rotating. A wire spring is provided around one end of the slip ring wherein a center portion of the wire spring elastically abuts against an outer circumferential surface of the slip ring. The slide portions are formed at symmetric positions with respect to the center portion of the wire spring.

Abstract: An in-vehicle device which is capable of performing control by means of speech recognition includes a monitor for displaying map and other information and a speech input microphone connected to the monitor.

Abstract: A motor has a rotatably supported rotor shaft and a rotator that rotates together with the rotor shaft. The rotator includes a shaft insertion section that has an internal peripheral surface and a specified length in an axial direction in which the rotor shaft is inserted. The internal peripheral surface has a first internal peripheral surface of a small diameter and a second internal peripheral surface having a diameter slightly greater than that of the first internal peripheral surface. The first internal peripheral surface engages the rotor shaft under a pressure, and the second internal peripheral surface is slightly spaced a distance from the rotor shaft, such that a gap is created between the second internal peripheral surface and the rotor shaft.

Abstract: Various sensors detect conditions outside a robot and an operation applied to the robot, and output the results of detection to a robot-motion-system control section. The robot-motion-system control section determines a behavior state according to a behavior model. A robot-thinking-system control section determines an emotion state according to an emotion model. A speech-synthesizing-control-information selection section determines a field on a speech-synthesizing-control-information table according to the behavior state and the emotion state. A language processing section analyzes in grammar a text for speech synthesizing sent from the robot-thinking-system control section, converts a predetermined portion according to a speech-synthesizing control information, and outputs to a rule-based speech synthesizing section. The rule-based speech synthesizing section synthesizes a speech signal corresponding to the text for speech synthesizing.

Abstract: In a synchronization control apparatus, a voice-language-information generating section generates the voice language information of a word which a robot utters. A voice synthesizing section calculates phoneme information and a phoneme continuation duration according to the voice language information, and also generates synthesized-voice data according to an adjusted phoneme continuation duration. An articulation-operation generating section calculates an articulation-operation period according to the phoneme information. A voice-operation adjusting section adjusts the phoneme continuation duration and the articulation-operation period. An articulation-operation executing section operates an organ of articulation according to the adjusted articulation-operation period.

Abstract: A book database stores at least phonetic signal information including phoneme information and rhythm information as document data, a central system transmits phonetic signal information stored on the book database to a terminal and the terminal receives the phonetic signal information is then carried out at the terminal and the document is then recited via synthesized sounds.

Abstract: An information processing system stores information of various types, which is obtained in the real world, in connection with keys indicative of the attribute and feature of the information so that the real-world information is stored quickly and surely in the virtual world which is formed of the linkage of information and stored information of various types is retrieved easily.

Abstract: An apparatus and a method for processing a natural language arranged so as to improve the speech recognition rate. In an example search section, the degree of similarity between each of a plurality of examples of the actual use of the language stored in an example data base and each of a plurality of probable recognition results output from a recognition section, and one of the examples corresponding to the highest degree of similarity is selected. A final speech recognition result is obtained by using the selected example. The example search section calculates the degree of similarity by weighting the degree of similarity on the basis of a context according to at least one of the examples previously selected.

Abstract: The language is composed using phonemes which is easy to separate in an environment of noise and disturbing sound.An acoustic signal comprising phonemes which is easy to separate in an environment of noise and disturbing sound fed to the acoustic signal analyzer is analyzed therein, and from the result of the analysis, the tone name is recognized in the tone name identifier, and after the tone name is recognized as a prescribed sentence, the sentence is fed to the utterance generator. Corresponding to these operations, the utterance generator generates a prescribed time series composed of tone names comprising phonemes which is easy to separate in an environment of noise and disturbing sound, and inputs it to the acoustic signal generator. The acoustic signal generator synthesizes an acoustic signal which corresponds to the time series and outputs the acoustic signal.

Abstract: A translation apparatus and a translation method arranged to facilitate the operation of inputting a speech and to obtain a correct translation. When a speech in Japanese is input to a microphone by a user, it is recognized in a speech recognition section and one or more words constituting the speech are output to a system control section. The system control section searches Japanese sentences stored in a first language sentence storage section to find one of them most similar to a combination of one or more words output from the speech recognition section. The Japanese sentence thereby found is output through an output section. If this Japanese sentence is correct, the user operates one of control keys. The system control section then searches English sentences stored in a second language sentence storage section to find one of them corresponding to a translation of the Japanese sentence output as a search result, and outputs the English sentence thereby found through the output section.

Abstract: A book database stores at least phonetic signal information including phoneme information and rhythm information as document data, a central system transmits phonetic signal information stored on the book database to a terminal and the terminal receives the phonetic signal information is then carried out at the terminal and the document is then recited via synthesized sounds.

Abstract: In a speech recognizing apparatus, a grammatical qualification of a proposed speech recognition result candidate is judged without using a grammatical rule. The speech recognizing apparatus for performing sentence/speech recognition is comprised of an analyzing unit for acoustically analyzing speech inputted therein to extract a feature parameter of the inputted speech; a recognizing unit for recognizing the inputted speech based upon the feature parameter outputted from said analyzing unit to thereby a plurality of proposed recognition result candidates; an example data base for storing therein a plurality of examples; and an example retrieving unit for calculating a resemblance degree between each of said plurality of proposed recognition result candidates and each of the plural examples stored in the example data base and for obtaining the speech recognition result based on said calculated resemblance degree.

Abstract: A code conversion table, in which a code of a voice with noise added thereto and a code of a voice without noise are associated with each other in terms of probability, is referred to in a code converter. Using the code converter, a code is obtained in a vector quantizer by vector-quantizing cepstrum coefficients extracted from the voice with noise added thereto, and is converted into a code of a voice obtained by suppressing the noise in the voice with noise added thereto. Linear predictive coefficients are obtained from the code, and the voice signal is reproduced in a synthesis filter according to the linear predictive coefficients.

Abstract: A speech recognition method and apparatus in which a plurality of time-sequential acoustic parameters are derived from a segmented input speech signal and are used to form a first trajectory that is time normalized. The time-normalized trajectory is sampled at predetermined lengths therealong and the sampling results used to form a new time-normalized trajectory with equally spaced points ("dots" on the graph), which is compared with a plurality of previously registered trajectories until a match is found between the new time-normalized trajectory and one of the registered trajectories, at which time an indication of the results of the matching is produced. A silence acoustic parameter can also be added to the time-sequential acoustic parameters so that the time-normalized trajectory can start and end from a point of silence.