Speech recognition breathes new life into operations - Brief Article

Airman, April, 2001 by John B. Dendy IV

When pilots speak in the cockpit, their advanced aircraft listens and reacts using brainier versions of the simple speech recognition software that kids can buy at a mall. More airmen -- in and out of the cockpit -- will soon say 'so long" to the mouse and keypad, and "hi, there" to this new technology.

Air Force test pilots already fly with such hardware on their NF-16D variable-stability in-flight simulator test aircraft. The first airmen to use the new software could be those working in control facilities where air campaigns from Bosnia to Iraq are run.

A future voice sensor also may "breathe new life" into the common Air Force office. This should help airmen who type messages while wearing bulky chemical/biological warfare suits. With speech recognition, one can ignore the keyboard and roar orders through a gas mask.

Civilian researchers at the Air Force Research Laboratory's human effectiveness directorate at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, are developing speech interfaces to current systems airmen use to run air wars. The airmen are on commercial computers, clacking their way through a series of menus to plan the daily air tasking order,

The task is manual and data-intensive, said Dave Williamson, a crew systems engineer at the lab. However, the lab's voice program lets its mission planners enter data quicker. These scientists don't just use a menu-speak equivalent where they say the words "planning" or "air mission" the way car owners can warble, "lights, off" or "cell phone, redial" today. That's only a direct replacement for a keyboard.

"If they [airmen] want to put a target to a [flying] unit, they should just be able to say, 'Assign target bravo to 48th Fighter Wing.' and away it goes," Williamson said.

The lab's speech team is close to a keypad-less and mouse-less success, said Williamson.

"The technology is being considered for future fighter crew stations. We've been working closely with one of the system program offices. It's working so well, the pilots don't want to go back to only the hand and eye to control and display information. It gives you that extra edge, when you have no 'back-seater' to rely on."

The Air Force lab team has also modified standard military headsets and oxygen masks to speech systems. They're only in the prototype stage, but the scientists are mounting tiny cameras on these 20th century crew devices. Used alone or with the voice-computer advantage, those future systems could help more airmen communicate precisely in noisy settings.