Overview
Voice Control Systems, Inc. (VCS) offers a family of powerful open-architecture multi-processor platforms for speech processing. The platforms support VPro software, VCS' field-deployed continuous and discrete speech recognition technologies.
There are three versions of the VPro platform available for low, medium and high density requirements, differentiated by the number of recognitions the board can simultaneously perform.
| Model | Discrete Recognitions | Continuous Recognitions | Speller Recognitions | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| VPro-88 | Eight | Eight | Four |
All VPro platforms are ISA compliant PC/AT boards. The audio signal can be directly routed to the board via the Dialogic® PEB TM, or Natural MicroSystems/Rhetorex MVIP TM PCM highways. Additionally, they can be used in Dialogic® AEB TM and Natural MicroSystems VBX TM environments through the use of the VProAdapt-12 PC/AT board. For demonstration purposes and application development, the VProAdapt/TLI TM, which interfaces directly to a telephone line or to a telephone set, is available.
Application Generator support for VPro is available from several providers, including Brooktrout Technology (Show N Tel) and Parity Software (VOS).
VPro Platform Capabilities
Each VPro platform supports four to eight Virtual Speech Processors (VSPs). Each VSP, depending on load factors, can handle multiple telephone lines (up to 24 or 30 in AEB or PEB environments; up to 256 in MVIP environments). Application and host computers communicate with each of the VSPs as separate autonomous units. These VSPs are feature-rich with over 50 API function calls, with each of the VSPs supporting functionality such as:
| Continuous digit and yes/no recognition | Timeslot (channel) selection |
| Discrete multiword speech recognition | Echo cancellation |
| Named audio buffers | Alphabet |
| Discrete speech recognition | Cut-ThruTM |
| On-board vocabulary development | Speaker verification |
| Audio recording and output |
VPro Platform Architecture
At the heart of the VPro platforms are Texas Instruments TMS320C31 microprocessors which provide up to 133 MFLOPS of compute power. The VPro platforms can have up to 8 megabytes of memory shared among all processors. In addition, each processor has 512K bytes of local memory.
Both the PEB and MVIP PCM audio buses are supported by all VPro platforms. Software controls the choice of the PEB bus, whether it is in a T1 or E1 mode, or the MVIP bus, where one of the eight MVIP 32-channel data streams is selected.
For test purposes, data can be looped back through either the PEB or MVIP interfaces using either the appropriate PCM clock signal or using an internally generated clock. VPro platforms can also be software configured to supply clock signals to either of the PCM buses.