THE UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST OF ENGLAND FACULTY OF ENVIRONMENT & TECHNOLOGY FRENCHAY Integrated Voice Recognition and Synthesis, in an Embedded System creating an Interactive Electronic Cook Book BSc Computer Systems Engineering UFCE3B-40-3 - Computing Project Jonathan Mark William Ambrose Student Number: 07503425 Supervisor : Craig Duffy Second Reader : Prakash Chatterjee Word Count : 16,429 Chapter 1-INTRODUCTION Page | i ABSTRACT The purpose of this project was to research and implement technologies that enable us to integrate with embedded devices. These technologies involved exploring how to combine speech recognition and voice synthesis together in an interactive system. The project then looks at applying this interaction in conjunction with pre-stored recipes in an XML format with a recipe book, to create a fully interactive electronic cook book. It then looks at applying this interaction in conjunction with pre-stored recipes in an XML format, to create a fully interactive electronic cook book. Chapter 1-INTRODUCTION Page | ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to thank the following people, without whom this project wouldn’t have been as successful: Craig Duffy for his continuous support, encouragement and guidance throughout the project. My Father, Julian Ambrose, for his proof reading, and in encouraging me to simplify the technologies I talk about within the report, to make it more understandable. Lorin Netsch of TIesr (Texas Instruments Embedded Speech Recogniser) developers, for the detailed and informative responses in various e-mails, and for his subsequent help with the issues of cross compiling for the IGEP hardware. Alan Black from Carnegie Mellon University for his email communication on Flite. ISEE, manufacturer of the IGEP hardware for their software and hardware support. I would like to thank the development team, particularly Manel Caro. I would also like to thank the open source developers of the Buildroot group, and the contributors to the mailing list. In particular, Thomas Petazzoni for his contributions to Festival. Lastly, all my close family and friends for their continuous support over the course of my final year. Chapter 1-INTRODUCTION Page | iii CONTENTS ABSTRACT ......................................................................................................................................................................... i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ..................................................................................................................................................... ii CONTENTS ....................................................................................................................................................................... iii Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................................ 1 1.1 Project motivation ............................................................................................................................................ 1 1.2 Objectives........................................................................................................................................................ 1 1.3 Equipment and software used ......................................................................................................................... 2 1.3.1 Linux host machine ................................................................................................................................2 1.3.2 Native Compiler .....................................................................................................................................2 1.3.3 ISEE IGEP v2 board ..............................................................................................................................3 1.3.4 Embedded Linux ....................................................................................................................................3 1.3.5 TIesr (Texas Instruments Embedded Speech Recogniser).....................................................................3 1.3.6 Flite (Text to speech engine) ..................................................................................................................3 1.4 Using open source software within my project ................................................................................................. 4 Chapter 2. METHODOLOGY ....................................................................................................................................... 5 2.1 Overview ......................................................................................................................................................... 5 2.2 Project research methodology ......................................................................................................................... 5 2.3 Project design methodology ............................................................................................................................. 5 2.4 Project implementation methodology ............................................................................................................... 6 2.5 Project testing methodology ............................................................................................................................. 6 Chapter 3. RESEARCH ............................................................................................................................................... 7 3.1 Embedded Systems ........................................................................................................................................ 7 3.1.1 What is an embedded system? ..............................................................................................................7 3.1.2 What is cross compiling and cross development toolchain? ...................................................................8 3.1.3 glibc & uClibc ....................................................................................................................................... 10 3.1.4 Static & Shared libraries ....................................................................................................................... 11 3.1.5 Choosing an embedded operating system ........................................................................................... 12 3.1.6 The Linux Kernel .................................................................................................................................. 15 3.1.7 The Linux Root File System ................................................................................................................. 17 3.1.8 Busybox ............................................................................................................................................... 18 3.1.9 Buildroot .............................................................................................................................................. 18 3.1.10 ALSA ................................................................................................................................................... 20 3.2 Analysing System Hardware .......................................................................................................................... 22 Chapter 1-INTRODUCTION Page | iv 3.2.1 O2 Joggler ........................................................................................................................................... 22 3.2.2 FriendlyArm Mini2440 (www.friendlyarm.net) ....................................................................................... 23 3.2.3 Texas Instruments’ (TI) BeagleBoard ................................................................................................... 25 3.2.4 ISEE IGEP V2. Rev.B & C ................................................................................................................... 26 3.3 Speech Synthesis .......................................................................................................................................... 28 3.3.1 Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 28 3.3.2 Overview .............................................................................................................................................. 29 3.3.3 Flite: a small, fast run time synthesis engine ........................................................................................ 30 3.3.4 Festival Speech Synthesis System ...................................................................................................... 30 3.4 Speech Recognition ...................................................................................................................................... 31 3.4.1 Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 31 3.4.2 Overview .............................................................................................................................................. 32 3.4.3 Why is Speech Recognition difficult to implement? .............................................................................. 34 3.4.4 Texas Instruments Embedded Speech Recogniser (TIesr) ................................................................... 35 3.5 Data storage with XML .................................................................................................................................