Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Agricultural price information acquisition using noise-robust Mandarin auto speech recognition

  • Published:
International Journal of Speech Technology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Speech-recognition technology was applied to collect agricultural-price information. In this paper, we propose a robust continuous Mandarin speech-recognition method suitable for environments where agricultural product prices are acquired. To mitigate the decrease in recognition rate caused by the mismatch between training and real tests, we developed acoustic models based on the Hidden Markov Model (HMM) and trained the models by collecting data in different environments. The results showed that the recognition performance of triphone models was superior to that of monophone models. Both male and female HMMs performed better than the male and female mixed acoustic models. Although the decision-tree clustering method could not significantly improve the recognition rate, it evidently would reduce the quantity of triphone models. Gaussian mixture components improved the recognition rate on one hand, but they increased the calculation tasks on the other hand. The cepstral mean normalization and cepstral variance normalization methods significantly improved the identification-system performance. Under different locations and different speaker tests, the methods we used demonstrated varying degrees of improvement in recognition performance. The ultimate recognition rates were 95.04% for the males and 97.62% for the females. Speech-recognition technology can possibly be applied to collection of agricultural-price information. The experimental results showed that the models trained by these methods exhibited good recognition performance. Furthermore, the approach adopted by our research lays the foundation for the development of an application system in the future.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Cao, Y., Teng, G., Yu, L., & Li, Q. (2014). Comparison of different de-noising methods in vocalization environment of laying hens including fan noise. Nongye Gongcheng Xuebao/transactions of the Chinese Society of Agricultural Engineering, 30(2), 212–218. (in Chinese).

    Google Scholar 

  • Chedad, A., Moshou, D., Aerts, J. M., Van Hirtum, A., Ramon, H., & Berckmans, D. (2001). Recognition system for pig cough based on probabilistic neural networks. Journal of Agricultural Engineering Research, 79(4), 449–457. https://doi.org/10.1006/jaer.2001.0719.

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Chen, C. P., & Bilmes, J. A. (2006). Mva processing of speech features. IEEE Transactions on Audio Speech & Language Processing, 15(1), 257–270. https://doi.org/10.1109/TASL.2006.876717.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dai, J. G., Wang, K. R., Li, S. K., Li, S. M., & Wang, Q. (2012). Designing and implementation of crop production management information system based on state-operated farm. Scientia Agricultura Sinica, 45(11), 2159–2167. (in Chinese).

    Google Scholar 

  • Gao, S., Bo, X. U., & Huang, T. (2000). Ttiphone models for mandarin speech recognition based on decision tree. Acta Acustica, 25(06), 504–509. (in Chinese).

    Google Scholar 

  • Guarino, M., Jans, P., Costa, A., Aerts, J. M., & Berckmans, D. (2008). Field test of algorithm for automatic cough detection in pig houses. Computers & Electronics in Agriculture, 62(1), 22–28. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compag.2007.08.016.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gurpreet, S., Akhil, J., & Priyam, C. (2010). Multi utility E-controlled cum voice operated farm vehicle. International Journal of Computer Applications, 1(13), 109–113.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee, K. F., Hon, H. W., & Reddy, R. (1990). An overview of the sphinx speech recognition system. IEEE Transactions on Acoustics Speech & Signal Processing, 38(1), 35–45. https://doi.org/10.1109/29.45616.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Li, C., & Wang, Z. Y. (2003). A new acoustic modeling of inter-syllable context-dependent units for Putonghua continuous speech recognition. Acta Acustica, 28(2), 187–191. (in Chinese).

    Google Scholar 

  • Li, J., Fang, Z., & Zhang, J. (2004). Context dependent initial/final acoustic modeling for continuous Chinese speech recognition. Journal of Tsinghua University, 44(1), 61–64. (in Chinese).

    Google Scholar 

  • Li, Y. G., Pu, F. A., & Zheng, F. (2012). Statistical threshholding for robust ASR. Journal of ChongQing University of Posts and Telecommunications: Natural Science Edition, 24(02), 127–132.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mantena, G. V., Rajendran, S., Rambabu, B., & Gangashetty, S. V. (2011). A speech-based conversation system for accessing agriculture commodity prices in Indian languages. The Workshop on Hands-Free Speech Communication & Microphone Arrays, IEEE. pp. 153–154.

  • Mohan, A., Rose, R., Ghalehjegh, S. H., & Umesh, S. (2014). Acoustic modelling for speech recognition in Indian languages in an agricultural commodities task domain. Speech Communication, 56(1), 167–180. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.specom.2013.07.005.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ni, C. J., Liu, W. J., & Xu, B. (2009). Research on large vocabulary continuous speech recognition for mandarin Chinese. Journal of Chinese Information Processing, 23(01), 112–123. (in Chinese).

    Google Scholar 

  • Ou, W., Gao, W., Li, Z., & Zhang, S. (2010). Application of keywords speech recognition in agricultural voice information system. 2nd International Conference on Computational Intelligence and Natural Computing Proceedings. Vol. 2, pp. 197–200.

  • Peng, D., Liu, G., & Guo, J. (2007). Study on acoustic modeling in a mandarin continuous speech recognition. International Journal of Mining Science and Technology, 17(1), 143–146. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1006-1266(07)60030-3.

    Google Scholar 

  • Plauche, M., Nallasamy, U., Pal, J., Wooters, C., & Ramachandran, D. (2007). Speech Recognition for Illiterate Access to Information and Technology. International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development. Vol. 67, pp. 83–92.

  • Qi, Y. H., Pan, F. P., Ge, F. P., & Yan, Y. H. (2013). Refining triphone model in mandarin continuous speech recognition. Application Research of Computers, 30(10), 2920–2922. (in Chinese).

    Google Scholar 

  • Qian, J. P., Wu, X. M., Fan, B. L., Yang, X. T., Sun, L. X., & Chen, M. (2013). A solution for improving vegetable circulation traceability precision based on barcode-rfid correspondence. Scientia Agricultura Sinica, 46(18), 3857–3863. (in Chinese).

    Google Scholar 

  • Tian, W. J., Shen, C. J., Zheng, W. G., Zhang, S. R., & Zhou, G. H. (2012). Design and implementation of agricultural products price information acquisition and early warning system. Computer Engineering and Design, 33(5), 1816–1821. (in Chinese).

    Google Scholar 

  • Xiao, Y. P., & Ye, W. P. (2010). Survey of feature normalization techniques for robust speech recognition. Journal of Chinese Information Processing, 24(05), 106–116. (in Chinese).

    Google Scholar 

  • Xu, S. W., Zhang, Y. E., LI, Z. Q., Li, Z. M., & Kong, F. T. (2011). Research on standard and classification coding system of holographic information of agricultural products market. Food and Nutrition in China, 17(12), 5–8. (in Chinese).

    Google Scholar 

  • Xu, X. H., Zhu, J., & Guo, Q. (2004). A Hierarchical clustering algorithm in continuous mandarin speech recognition. Signal Processing, 20(05), 497–500. (in Chinese).

    Google Scholar 

  • Yao, X., Luo, M., & Yang, G. Q. (2012). Research and design of pen-based interaction agricultural information collection and dissemination system. Computer and Mordenlization, 4, 71–75. (in Chinese).

    Google Scholar 

  • Zhang, S. R., Zheng, W. G., Shen, C. J., & Xing, Z. (2012). Agricultural product price information collection terminal of embedded portable wireless. Computer Engineering and Design, 33(2), 514–518. (in Chinese).

    Google Scholar 

  • Zhao, C. J., Shen, C. J., Xing, Z., Zheng, W. G., Bao, F., & Wu, W. B. (2011). A device and method of agricultural product information acquisition. China Patent, CN102122430A.

  • Zhao, L., Wang, H., Zhan, Z., & Kong, X. (2008). Research advances in insect acoustic signals and their applications. Plant Protection, 34(4), 5–12. (in Chinese).

    Google Scholar 

  • Zhu, L. Q., & Zhang, Z. (2012). Automatic recognition of insect sounds using mfcc and gmm. Acta Entomologica Sinica, 55(4), 466–471. (in Chinese).

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The research was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (61271364) and the High-level Talents Fund of Qingdao Agricultural University (663/1116022), and A Project of Shandong Province Higher Educational Science and Technology Program (J17KA154). The authors would like to thank the speakers and volunteers for their recorded sound files during the data-acquisition process.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Animation & Communication, Qingdao Agricultural University, Qingdao, Shandong, People’s Republic of China

    Jinpu Xu & Dexin Ma

  2. Agricultural Information Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences/Key Laboratory of Agri-Information Service Technology, Ministry of Agriculture, Beijing, People’s Republic of China

    Jinpu Xu & Yeping Zhu

  3. Department of Network Management Center, Qingdao Agricultural University, Qingdao, Shandong, People’s Republic of China

    Pengmin Xu

Authors
  1. Jinpu Xu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Yeping Zhu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Pengmin Xu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Dexin Ma
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Dexin Ma.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Xu, J., Zhu, Y., Xu, P. et al. Agricultural price information acquisition using noise-robust Mandarin auto speech recognition. Int J Speech Technol 21, 681–688 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10772-018-9532-7

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10772-018-9532-7

Keywords

Search

Navigation