WO2015194684A1 - Method for providing service according to user dialogue and dialogue agent system - Google Patents

Abstract

Provided are a method for providing a service by extracting necessary information from a user dialogue, and a dialogue agent system for performing the same method. The method for providing the service according to a user dialogue of the present invention comprises: a step for extracting keywords from the user dialogue; a searching step for searching for services by using the extracted keywords; an intervention step for determining the service to be provided from among the searched for services, and generating the information necessary for providing the corresponding service; and a delegation step for delegating system control authority while providing the generated information to a service provider providing the determined service. According to the present invention, a service developer, excluding a software developer, can easily add an interactive interface for a new service by using an editor when providing the new service.

Description

Service provision method and dialog agent system according to user dialog

The present invention relates to a service providing method and a dialog agent system according to a user dialog, and more particularly, a method for extracting necessary information from a user's dialog and providing a service and a dialog agent system performing the method. It is about.

End-user devices, such as smartphones and tablet computers, are able to run software applications to perform a variety of tasks and provide different types of information over the Internet, including the functions, services, and information they can access and perform. The back is skyrocketing.

Each application, function, and website has its own user interface and mode of operation, which can be burdensome or overwhelming for users to learn. In addition, many users may have difficulty even finding what functionality or information is available on their electronic devices or various websites and thus may not be able to effectively use the resources available to them.

As a way to solve this difficulty, a user interface has been introduced that allows a user to input a dialogue (dialog) form of a sentence by voice or text to interpret the information and to obtain information corresponding to the input content or to perform a function. .

For example, Siri, an Apple-provided service, specifically provides a user interface by interpreting the user's voice input and responding with voice / text / graphics, or by performing the function requested by the user (such as dialing). Even if you don't learn it, you can easily perform functions and get information. However, Siri is a dialog agent system installed in iPhone, Apple's smartphone, and it is difficult to use other application services in conjunction with Siri in addition to Siri-linked services provided by Apple.

In addition, S-Voice, a dialog agent system installed on Galaxy, Samsung's smartphone, is also based on the connection with the service provided by the manufacturer (basically built in the terminal) and only external services using search. As a target service, there is a shortage of linkage with various external services, and it is difficult for an external company to make an application using the same.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of this point, and provides a service providing method and a dialog agent system according to a user dialog capable of grasping a user's intention to perform desired services or to perform a function such as device control. .

Another object of the present invention is that even when a new application service (a variety of apps in the market and services provided by the web) is released, an application service developer, not a core software developer such as a manufacturer, talks about a new application service developed by the developer. It is to provide a service providing method and a dialog agent system according to a user dialog that can be added to easily connect with a user interface. Accordingly, the application services can be used in conjunction with the dialog agent system to increase the utilization, and the dialog agent system can be activated by providing a means for utilizing various application services.

Still another object of the present invention is to provide a service providing method and a dialog agent system according to a user dialog that can be applied to a user interface of various devices (smartphone, tablet, vehicle infotainment device, etc.) as a module.

The service providing method according to the user dialog of the present invention for achieving the above object, the step of extracting the user's intention and attribute information from the user dialog, the search for searching for services using the extracted user intention and attribute information A mediation step of deciding a service to be provided from among the discovered services and generating information necessary to provide the service, and a delegation step of transferring system control authority while providing the generated information to a service provider providing the determined service. Include. The user dialog may be converted into text by recognizing the user's voice.

The search step is to find a suitable service to be provided according to the user's intention. The search step stores the user's intention registered by the service provider, service area, necessary information for processing the service, and service provider information regarding the service provider providing the service. The service profile is used to find services that match the user's intention. Service providers include programs that provide services, and websites that provide services. The necessary information is obtained by linguistic analysis of the dialog of the user with parameter information necessary to perform the service.

The mediation step is to select the appropriate service for the user among the searched services or to generate information necessary for the service. There may be a large number of services searched according to the user's intention, and a suitable result is selected or provided according to the service provision range specified in the user's preference or profile, or the contents of the plurality of services are combined to generate a necessary result. In the mediation step, at least one of selecting a provided service using a service providing range, selecting a provided service using a user preference, and providing a combination of information obtained using a plurality of services may be performed. Can be.

The delegation step is to execute the selected service using an application framework provided according to each device.

The service providing method according to the user dialog of the present invention may further include receiving a user's intention, service area, necessary information for processing a service, and service provider information regarding a service to be provided from a service provider and storing the received information in a service profile. It may further include.

The dialog agent system of the present invention is a dialog agent system for providing a service according to a user dialog, and includes a memory in which one or more processors and instructions are stored.

The instructions, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the processors to extract user intent and attribute information from a user dialog, and to search for services using the extracted user intent and attribute information. A mediation operation for determining a service to be provided from among the searched services and generating information for providing the service, and a delegation operation for transferring the system control authority while providing the generated information to a service provider providing the determined service. To perform the operations. The system of the present invention may further include an editor for receiving a user's intention, service area, necessary information, and service provider information about a service to be provided from a service provider and storing the received information in the service profile.

According to the present invention, it is possible to perform services or perform functions such as device control regardless of the user interface of an app or a website using an easy interface using a conversation. You don't have to spend time to learn and anyone can use the service easily.

In addition, even if you want to provide a new service, service developers, not software developers, can easily add interactive interfaces to new services using the editor, so that external services (services provided by various apps and webs in the market) E) can be conveniently linked to the dialog agent system, and thus the dialog agent can be more easily utilized, thereby increasing the utilization of the dialog agent.

In addition, in order to provide the method of the present invention, since only the client program capable of using the dialog agent of the present invention needs to be installed in the terminal, it can be applied as a user interface tool to various devices.

1 is a conceptual diagram illustrating an environment in which the dialog agent system of the present invention operates.

Figure 2 is a block diagram showing the internal configuration of the dialog agent system of the present invention.

3 is a flowchart showing the operation flow of the dialog agent system of the present invention.

Hereinafter, exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. In the following description, the term "app" or "program" is used interchangeably to indicate software installed in a terminal and providing a service. In addition, the terms "conversation" or "dialog" are used interchangeably to indicate a sentence input by a user.

1 is a conceptual diagram illustrating an environment in which the dialog agent system of the present invention operates.

The dialog agent system 100 of the present invention is connected to a terminal such as a mobile phone 10, a tablet, a smart TV, a PC 20, and the like through a communication network such as a wireless network (3G, LTE, WiFi), a wired network (Internet), and the like. . Each terminal 10, 20 is provided with a client program for providing information to the user in an interactive form and performing a desired function by the user in cooperation with the dialog agent system of the present invention.

The user executes a client program and enters voice or text interactively to request the desired information or service. The input contents are transmitted to the dialog agent system 100 through a communication network, and the dialog agent system 100 processes the input contents and processes the input contents to process the intention shown in the user's conversation. The client program uses this information to either respond to the user or perform the service (app or web) requested by the user using the parameters contained in this information.

Figure 2 is a block diagram showing the internal configuration of the dialog agent system of the present invention.

The dialog agent system 100 has a transmission / reception server function for exchanging data with a user terminal. The transmission / reception server function is provided with a web server / WAS (Web Application Server) using a web protocol or a server program using its own protocol. The data from the user terminal may be voice data spoken by the user or text data input by the user. In addition, according to the exemplary embodiment, it is possible to configure the terminal to recognize the voice input by the terminal, convert the text into a text, and then transmit the converted text to the dialog agent system 100. The association with the client program with the dialog agent system 100 is preferably defined in an XML based protocol.

If the input content is voice data, the server 110 transmits it to the voice recognition unit 120 to convert the voice data into text. The converted text is again converted into a request code form and transmitted to the DA (Dialogue Agent) manager 130.

DA (Dialogue Agent) management unit 130 selects a worker to perform the task according to the request code (request code) from the web server / WAS (110), and the result is performed again through the web server / WAS (110) Provided by client program.

The input conversation content is processed by the natural language processing engine 140. The natural language processing engine 140 extracts user intention and attribute information from the conversation contents. For example, if the sentence "What is the weather in Gangwon-do?" Is entered, it is understood that the intention of this sentence is "weather_view", the area is "weather", and the place is "gangwon-do".

The performing engine 150 searches for services using user intention and attribute information, an arbitration step of determining services to be provided among the searched services, and generating information necessary for providing the services, and the determined services. The delegation step of transferring the system control authority while providing the generated information to the providing service provider is performed.

In the present invention, a service profile is used to perform these steps. Service profiles are a database describing the characteristics of services, making services developed by service developers easier and more easily applicable. The service profile consists of the domain representing the service, type of service provision, service provider information, and necessary information necessary to process the service belonging to the domain. The profile is used by the service developer to use the editor 160. Register directly.

The main fields included in the service profile are as follows.

-Domain : information on which services the service belongs to (e.g. bus, weather, exchange rate, etc.)

-User Intention : Information that indicates the user's requirements for the area (eg bus_route_find, bus_arrival_time, bus_stop_find, etc.)

-Type of service provision : Type for providing services on each device (e.g. web service, native app, hybrid app, etc.)

-Service provider information : information about the service provider that provides the service. Address information (URL, etc.) of the service (web site) to which control is delegated to perform the service, or program execution information (Intent, etc. for Android OS). Information from

-Necessary information : Defined according to the characteristics of each service to be linked with the parameter information required to process the service (e.g. weather service of Portal A can be linked using "Date" and "Place" as parameters. "Date" and "place" are necessary information)

The dialog agent system of the present invention also includes an editor 160 that enables a service developer who is not a conversation management expert to easily add or delete a new service, and a simulator 170 that can simulate the added service through a conversation interface. Can be provided.

The editor 160 is a tool for associating a dialogue interface with a service developed by a service developer, and edits and registers the above-described service profile so that the dialogue agent system can be used.

The simulator 170 simulates the execution of a service registered with the editor 160 through an actual dialog interface.

Next, an operation of the dialog agent system according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG. 3.

First, when the user's conversation content is input in the form of voice data, the voice recognition unit 120 recognizes this and converts it into text data (step 310). This step is not performed when the user's voice is converted into text in the terminal and input to the dialog agent system 100, or when the user inputs the conversation contents in the text.

Next, the natural language processing engine 140 extracts user intention and attribute information from the user dialog (step 320). The user dialog "What's the weather in Gangwon-do?" Goes through the steps of morphological analysis, syntax syntax, and semantic analysis. The user's intention of "weather_view" and "place: Gangwon-do", "time: today Extract attribute information. Attribute information that does not appear in the user dialog such as "time: today" is generated by the natural language processing engine 140 in consideration of the context of the dialog.

The execution engine 150 performs the following steps by using information extracted from the natural language processing engine and stored service profiles.

First, the services are searched using the extracted user intention (step 330). In this step, you find a service in the service profile that matches your intent. For example, a user dialog called "What's the weather like in Gangwon-do?" Is extracted from the user's intention of "weather_view" by the natural language processing engine. If "Weather Services" is registered, these two services can be found by searching.

Next, an arbitration step of determining a service to be provided from among one or more services discovered in the previous step and generating information necessary for providing the service is performed (step 340).

The mediation stage may be configured to determine which services to provide or to process and provide information from one of three forms:

-Service selection using service provision range : Appropriate services using the service provision scope of each service registered in the service profile (determined from the necessary information registered in the service profile or a separate service provision field may be prepared). Select. For example, if A weather service and B weather service are searched according to the user's intention "weather_view", A weather service is registered in the service profile with "place" and "time" as necessary information, and each attempt is made according to the place. When the weather service is available and B weather service is required information, only "time" is registered. If the weather service is not available for each attempt, the weather service is requested for each attempt (Gangwon-do). Arbitrate to use weather services.

-Selection of the provided service using the user's preference : The provided service is selected using the user's preference (priority of the attribute information such as frequency, place, and time used by the user) among the searched services. For example, if a user uses the A weather service more often than the B weather service as the weather service, the user arbitrates to select the A weather service first. In addition, if the weather service according to the time change is used more than the regional weather, it arbitrates to select the weather for the daily time change first.

-Combination of information using multiple services : Creates new information using the information included in the discovered service and provides it as a service. For example, if the user asks "What is the nearest restaurant?" And "Menu.com" and "Wingbus" are registered in the service profile for "Restaurant_Find", then the mediation step is a restaurant that combines the information of the two services. Create and provide information.

In the arbitration step, the necessary information corresponding to the searched service is also generated by using the attribute information extracted from the natural language processing engine. For example, if the dialogue "What is the weather like in Gangwon-do?" Is entered, the extracted attribute information "Gangwon-do (place)" matches the necessary information "place" registered in the service profile for A weather service. Is created with the parameter "place = Gangwon-do".

When the service and the parameters are determined as described above, the execution engine 150 delegates the system control authority while providing the parameters to the service providers registered in the service profile of the corresponding service (step 360). For example, A weather service is registered in the service profile as "Intent: Weather_View, Service Type: Web, Service Provider Information: http://Weather.com, Necessary Information: Location, Time" and the user dialog is If the user's intention is analyzed by "weather_view" through "natural weather processing engine" and natural weather processing engine, and the attribute information "Gangwon-do (place)" is extracted, the performing engine uses "http: //Weather.com "delegates service control to the system for each device to service using the parameter" Place = Gangwon-do ".

Meanwhile, in the above description, the case in which the dialog agent system 100 is connected to the terminal through a communication network has been described. However, according to an exemplary embodiment, the dialog agent system 100 may be configured to be embedded in the terminal. In this case, the user's conversation input is analyzed by the embedded dialog agent system and controlled to provide the information / service requested by the user. In addition, by installing a service profile for running the app using a dialog agent when a new app is installed, the app using the dialog agent of the present invention in addition to the method of running the app through a general user interface Can be run.

In addition, some or all of the functions described above may be configured as separate hardware, or may be configured as a memory device that stores one or more processors and a program for performing the function.

In the above description, it is described that all the components constituting the embodiments of the present invention are combined or operated in one, but the present invention is not necessarily limited to these embodiments. In other words, within the scope of the present invention, all of the components may be selectively operated in combination with one or more.

In addition, the terms "comprise", "comprise" or "having" described above mean that the corresponding component may be inherent unless specifically stated otherwise, and thus excludes other components. It should be construed that it may further include other components instead. All terms, including technical and scientific terms, have the same meaning as commonly understood by one of ordinary skill in the art unless otherwise defined. Terms used generally, such as terms defined in a dictionary, should be interpreted to coincide with the contextual meaning of the related art, and shall not be interpreted in an ideal or excessively formal sense unless explicitly defined in the present invention.

The above description is merely illustrative of the technical idea of the present invention, and those skilled in the art to which the present invention pertains may make various modifications and changes without departing from the essential characteristics of the present invention. Therefore, the embodiments disclosed in the present invention are not intended to limit the technical idea of the present invention but to describe the present invention, and the scope of the technical idea of the present invention is not limited by these embodiments. The protection scope of the present invention should be interpreted by the following claims, and all technical ideas within the equivalent scope should be interpreted as being included in the scope of the present invention.

 * Explanation of Codes *

100 dialog agent system,

110 web server / WAS,

120 Speech Recognition

130 DA management unit,

140 natural language processing engine,

150 performance engine,

160 editors,

170 simulator.

Claims (15)

Extracting user intention and attribute information from the user dialog; A search step of searching for services using the extracted user intention and attribute information; An arbitration step of deciding which service to provide among the discovered services and generating information necessary to provide the service, Delegation step of transferring the system control authority while providing the generated information to the service provider providing the determined service Service providing method according to the user dialog comprising a. The method of claim 1, wherein the searching step comprises: Services that match the intention of the user are stored by using a service profile that stores a user's intention registered by the service provider, a service area, necessary information for processing a service, and service provider information on a service provider providing the service. Service providing method according to the user dialog, characterized in that finding. The method of claim 2, wherein the mediation step, Any one of an operation of selecting a provided service using a service providing range, an operation of selecting a provided service using a user's preference, and providing a combination of information obtained by using a plurality of services To do one Service providing method according to the user dialog, characterized in that. The method of claim 3, The service providing method is a service providing method according to the user dialog, characterized in that the grasp from the necessary information included in the service profile for each service. The method of claim 3, And the user preference is determined from a frequency of use of each service by a user or priority of attribute information of the user. The method of claim 2, The service provider is a service providing method according to a user dialog, characterized in that it comprises a program for providing a service, a website for providing a service. The method according to any one of claims 2 to 6, And receiving a user's intention, service area, necessary information, and service provider information about a service to be provided from a service provider, and storing the received information in the service profile. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 6, wherein the user dialog is a voice of a user and is converted into a text. A dialog agent system for providing a service according to a user dialog, One or more processors; And Memory where instructions are stored Including, The instructions cause the processors to execute when executed by the one or more processors, Extracting user intention and attribute information from the user dialog; A search operation for searching services using the extracted user intention and attribute information, An arbitration operation for determining a service to be provided among the searched services and generating information for providing the service; Delegation operation for transferring the system control authority while providing the generated information to a service provider providing the determined service A dialog agent system for performing operations comprising a. The method of claim 9, The searching operation may be performed by using a service profile that stores a user intention registered by a service provider, a service area, necessary information required for processing a service, service provider information regarding a service provider providing a corresponding service, and the like. The dialog agent system that finds services that match. The method of claim 10, wherein the mediation operation, A dial for performing any one of selecting a provided service using a service providing range, selecting a provided service using a user preference, and providing a combination of information obtained using a plurality of services. Log agent system. The method of claim 11, The service providing range is a dialog agent system characterized in that the grasp from the necessary information included in the service profile for each service. The method of claim 11, The user preferences dialog box characterized in that the user grasps from the frequency of using each service or the priority of the attribute information of the user. The method of claim 10, The service provider includes a program providing a service and a website providing the service. The method according to any one of claims 9 to 14, And an editor for receiving a user's intention, service area, necessary information, and service provider information about a service to be provided from a service provider and storing the received information in the service profile.

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