System and method for identifying audio command prompts for use in a voice response environment

A system for identifying audio command prompts for use in a voice response environment, comprising:

• a signature module to generate a signature for one or more received audio samples each having preceding audio, reference phrase audio, and trailing audio segments, comprising:
• a removal module to remove the trailing audio segment and to divide each of the preceding audio and reference phrase audio segments into buffers;
• a transformation module to transform the buffers into discrete fourier transform buffers;
• and
• a selection module to select one of the discrete fourier transform buffers from the reference phrase audio segment that is least like any of the discrete fourier transform buffers from the preceding audio segment as the signature that identifies an audio phrase under the reference phrase audio segment for that audio sample, comprising:
• a preceding audio correlation module to determine a preceding audio correlation coefficient between each of the discrete fourier transform buffers from the reference phrase audio segment and each of the discrete fourier transform buffers from the preceding audio segment, and to select for each of the discrete fourier transform buffers from the reference phrase audio segment, a maximum value of the preceding audio correlation coefficients;
• a reference audio correlation module to determine a reference audio correlation coefficient between each of the discrete fourier transform buffers in the reference phrase audio segment and the remaining discrete fourier transform buffers in the reference phrase audio segment, and to select for each of the discrete fourier transform buffers from the reference phrase audio segment, a maximum value of the reference audio correlation coefficients;
• a distance module to determine a distance for each of the discrete fourier transform buffers in the reference phrase audio segment based on the maximum value for the preceding audio correlation coefficient and the maximum value for the reference audio correlation coefficient;
• and
• a selection module to select the one discrete fourier transform buffer from the reference phrase audio segment with the greatest distance as the signature;
• a audio command processor to receive audio command prompts and to process each of the audio command prompts to generate a discrete fourier transform;
• a comparison module to compare each discrete fourier transform for the audio command prompts with each of the signatures and to determine a correlation value of each comparison;
• a determination module to determine that one such audio command prompt matches one such signature when the correlation value for that audio command prompt and signature satisfies a threshold;
• and
• a processor to execute the modules.