Voice control of applications by associating user input with action-context identifier pairs

A non-transitory computer program product, comprising a computer usable medium having a computer readable program code embodied therein, said computer readable program code being executable by a processor to implement a method for enabling or enhancing a use of voice control in a voice controlled application (VCA) via a development framework, the method comprising:

• providing in the development framework a plurality of framework action-context pairs usable in a memory of an application development device comprising a processor, that serve to direct execution of the VCA, wherein each framework action-context pair defines an action and a list of parameters related to the action and respective value types of the parameters;
• providing at least one of a voice recognition engine (VRE) or a natural language library to match each action-context pair with semantically related vocabulary;
• and
• generating automatically a grammar to capture knowledge about natural language understanding in the context of said VCA;
• providing in the development framework a registration mechanism that forms an association between an action-context pair and a handler in the VCA, the registration mechanism such that when a voice input is received, the voice input is sent to a speech recognition engine based on said grammar to obtain an action-context pair from the plurality of framework action-context pairs and the action-context pair is used to select and trigger the handler in the VCA to execute the action intended by the voice input.

A voice controlled application (VCA) development system, comprising:

• a processor;
• a storage device accessible by the processor;
• a voice controlled application development framework comprising:
• a plurality of framework action-context pairs that serve to direct execution of the VCA, wherein each framework action-context pair defines an action and a list of parameters related to the action and the respective value types of the parameters;
• at least one of a voice recognition engine (VRE) and a natural language library to match each framework action-context pair with semantically related vocabulary;
• a grammar automatically generated to capture knowledge about natural language understanding in the context of said VCA;
• a registration mechanism that permits an association to be formed between an action-context pair and a handler in the voice controlled application;
• wherein the processor:
• receives a voice input,
• applies the voice input to the VRE to transform the voice input into natural language text,
• applies the natural language text to the automatically generated grammar to identify at least one framework action-context pair, and
• uses the action-context pair to select and trigger the handler in the VCA to execute the action intended by the voice input.

User equipment (UE), comprising:

• a microphone;
• a storage area;
• a VCA executable file that uses action-context pairs and associated VCA application handlers associated with each action-context pair;
• an assignment element that assigns VCA handler execution addresses to each of the action-context pairs at run-time;
• an access element for accessing at least one of a voice recognition engine (VRE) and a natural language library on the UE or on a networked cloud and translating voice input into a run-time action-context pair, wherein the run-time context contains a list of parameter values related to the action;
• a speech recognition engine for obtaining a run-time action-context pair from a voice input, said speech recognition engine being based on a grammar automatically generated to capture knowledge about natural language understanding in the context of said VCA;
• an execution element that executes a specific VCA handler at the VCA handler execution address associated with the run-time action-context pair.