Use of fuzzy mathematical concepts in character spotting for automatic recognition of continuous speech in Hindi

In this paper we describe the use of fuzzy mathematical concepts in spotting characters from continuous speech in the Indian language Hindi. The research effort reported here is concerned with identifying the phonetic features from the acoustic parameters of a speech signal and combining the features to spot a character in continuous speech. These functions are performed by using expert systems that use confidence values for grading the conclusions arrived at each stage of processing. This paper discusses how this grading is obtained by using numerical translation of the description of a character obtained from an expert phonetician. Confidence values are assigned to the premises of the rules obtained from an expert phonetician using fuzzy membership functions. Fuzzy relations are used to grade the conclusions derived from these premises. Results of applying these techniques to character spotting are given. © 1992.