Direct voice input (DVI), sometimes called voice input control (VIC), is a style of
human–machine interaction "HMI" in which the user makes
voice commands to issue instructions to the machine through
speech recognition
Speech recognition is an interdisciplinary subfield of computer science and computational linguistics that develops methodologies and technologies that enable the recognition and translation of spoken language into text by computers with the ...
.
In the field of
military aviation, DVI has been introduced into the cockpits of several modern military aircraft, such as the
Eurofighter Typhoon
The Eurofighter Typhoon is a European multinational twin-engine, canard delta wing, multirole fighter. The Typhoon was designed originally as an air-superiority fighter and is manufactured by a consortium of Airbus, BAE Systems and Leonardo ...
, the
Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II
The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II is an American family of single-seat, single-engine, all-weather Stealth aircraft, stealth multirole combat aircraft that is intended to perform both Air superiority fighter, air superiority and attack ...
, the
Dassault Rafale
The Dassault Rafale (, literally meaning "gust of wind", and "burst of fire" in a more military sense) is a French twin-engine, canard delta wing, multirole fighter aircraft designed and built by Dassault Aviation. Equipped with a wide range ...
, the
KF-21 Boramae and the
Saab JAS 39 Gripen
The Saab JAS 39 Gripen (; English: ''griffin'') is a light single-engine multirole fighter aircraft manufactured by the Swedish aerospace and defense company Saab AB. The Gripen has a delta wing and canard configuration with relaxed stabilit ...
. Such systems have been also been used for various other purposes, including industry control systems and speech recognition assistance for impaired individuals.
Overview
DVI systems can be divided into two major categories of functionality: "user-dependent" or "user-independent". A user-dependent system requires that a personal voice template to be generated for a specific person; the template for this individual has to be loaded onto their assigned machine prior to use of the DVI system for it to function properly. In contrast, a user-independent system does not require any personal voice template, being intended to respond correctly to the voice of any user. They can also be categorised between "discrete recognition" and "continuous recognition". Users of a discrete recognition system must pause between each word so that the DVI system can identify the separations between each word, while a continuous speech recognition system is capable of understanding a normal rate of speech.
During the mid-2000s, researchers at the
National Aerospace Laboratory in the
Netherlands
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examined the use of DVI in the "GRACE" simulator; a total of twelve pilots participated in the ensuing experiment. The tests performed reportedly revealed that, while the hardware itself functioned well, several improvements were desirable prior to real-world deployment on aircraft since DVI operations actually consumed more time in comparison to traditional existing methods. Recommendations for improvements included the adoption of simpler
syntax, the achievement of a greater recognition rate, and a decrease in response times; all of the issues encountered were determined to be of a technological nature, and were deemed feasible to resolve. The researchers concluded that in cockpits, especially during emergencies where pilots have to operate entirely on their own, a DVI system could be highly relevant, but that it was not of crucial importance during most other conceivable scenarios.
Around the same time, evaluations of DVI systems for civil aviation purposes were conducted within the framework of Project SafeSound, coordinated by the
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been de ...
. It involved the observation of pilot workloads in real-world cockpits and contrasting them against pilot activity in flight simulators using both conventional systems and DVI assistance. The project aimed to enhance aviation safety and to decrease the workload in both ground and flight operations via the application of enhanced audio functions.
Applications
Aviation
Prior to its widespread deployment, a handful of conventional military aircraft were converted to trial DVI systems; examples include the
Harrier AV-8B and
F-16 VISTA. In another case, an
General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon simulator was modified with DVI for a voice control study that was undertaken by the
Royal Netherlands Air Force.
[Gibbon, D,, Mertins, I. and Moore, R.K. (2000) “Handbook of Multimodal and Spoken Dialogue Systems Resources, Terminology and Product Evaluation” (The Springer International Series in Engineering and Computer Science, Vol. 565), Massachusetts, Kluwer Academic Publishers]
DVI trials have also been conducted on
helicopter
A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...
s, including the
Boeing AH-64 Apache
The Boeing AH-64 Apache () is an American twin-turboshaft attack helicopter with a tailwheel-type landing gear arrangement and a tandem cockpit for a crew of two. It features a nose-mounted sensor suite for target acquisition and night vis ...
, showing the potential to improve flight safety and mission effectiveness.
Numerous modern fighter aircraft have been outfitted with DVI systems, often in combination with various other man-machine interface schemes, such as
HOTAS
HOTAS, an acronym of hands on throttle-and-stick, is the concept of placing buttons and switches on the throttle lever and flight control stick in an aircraft's cockpit. By adopting such an arrangement, pilots are capable of performing all vit ...
-compliant controls and other advanced control technologies. The combination of Voice and HOTAS control schemes has sometimes been referred to as the "V-TAS" concept. A prominent fighter aircraft to be furnished with a V-TAS cockpit is the
Eurofighter Typhoon
The Eurofighter Typhoon is a European multinational twin-engine, canard delta wing, multirole fighter. The Typhoon was designed originally as an air-superiority fighter and is manufactured by a consortium of Airbus, BAE Systems and Leonardo ...
.
[Owen, Paul S]
"Eurofighter cockpit."
''Eurofighter-typhoon.co.uk'' 7 December 1997. Retrieved: 28 November 2009. The
Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II
The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II is an American family of single-seat, single-engine, all-weather Stealth aircraft, stealth multirole combat aircraft that is intended to perform both Air superiority fighter, air superiority and attack ...
also features a DVI system, which was developed by
Adacel
Adacel is a global technology company that develops and implements air traffic management systems, as well as air traffic control simulation and training solutions. The company was established in 1987. Its major customers include Federal Av ...
.
Other examples includes the
Dassault Rafale
The Dassault Rafale (, literally meaning "gust of wind", and "burst of fire" in a more military sense) is a French twin-engine, canard delta wing, multirole fighter aircraft designed and built by Dassault Aviation. Equipped with a wide range ...
and the
Saab JAS 39 Gripen
The Saab JAS 39 Gripen (; English: ''griffin'') is a light single-engine multirole fighter aircraft manufactured by the Swedish aerospace and defense company Saab AB. The Gripen has a delta wing and canard configuration with relaxed stabilit ...
.
[
Numerous aircraft have been planned to use DVI. At one stage, the ]United States Air Force
The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Aerial warfare, air military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part ...
had sought to integrate DVI upon the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor
The Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor is an American single-seat, twin-engine, all-weather stealth tactical fighter aircraft developed for the United States Air Force (USAF). As the result of the USAF's Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) program, th ...
; however, the technology was eventually judged to pose too many technical risks at that point in time, and thus such efforts were abandoned.
Personal
By 1990, working prototypes of speech recognition
Speech recognition is an interdisciplinary subfield of computer science and computational linguistics that develops methodologies and technologies that enable the recognition and translation of spoken language into text by computers with the ...
systems were being demonstrated; these were being promoted for the purpose of providing an effective man-machine interface for individuals with impaired speech. Techniques employed included time-encoded digital speech and automatic token set selection. Investigations of these early DVI systems reportedly included the use of automatic diagnostic routines and limited-scale trials using volunteers.
During the 2010s, various companies were offering voice recognition systems to the general public in the form of personal digital assistant
A personal digital assistant (PDA), also known as a handheld PC, is a variety mobile device which functions as a personal information manager. PDAs have been mostly displaced by the widespread adoption of highly capable smartphones, in part ...
s. One example is the Google Voice
Google Voice is a telephone service that provides a U.S. phone number to Google Account customers in the U.S. and Google Workspace (G Suite by October 2020) customers in Canada, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switz ...
service, which allows users to pose questions via a DVI package installed on either a personal computer
A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or tec ...
, tablet, or mobile phone
A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whi ...
. Numerous digital assistants have been developed, such as Amazon Echo
Amazon Echo, often shortened to Echo, is an American brand of smart speakers developed by Amazon. Echo devices connect to the voice-controlled intelligent personal assistant service '' Alexa'', which will respond when a user says "Alexa". Users ...
, Siri
Siri ( ) is a virtual assistant that is part of Apple Inc.'s iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, macOS, tvOS, and audioOS operating systems. It uses voice queries, gesture based control, focus-tracking and a natural-language user interface to answer qu ...
, and Cortana, that use DVI to interact with users.
Commercial
DVI technology has enabled automated telephone
A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into e ...
systems to be widely deployed. Many companies commonly use centralised phone systems that route callers to the correct department via such methods. Various car manufacturers have also furnished their road vehicles with DVI systems; these typically allow drivers to control infotainment systems and interact with mobile phones with more convenience than legacy methods.
During the late 1980s, investigations into the use of DVI systems for controlling CNC Machine
Numerical control (also computer numerical control, and commonly called CNC) is the automated control of machining tools (such as drills, lathes, mills, grinders, routers and 3D printers) by means of a computer. A CNC machine processes a pie ...
s and other manufacturing apparatus were underway. During the 2010s, such systems were being used for logistics and warehouse management purposes.
References
External links
"One-Eleven Trailblazers"
a 1985 ''Flight'' article on advanced avionics including DVI
{{DEFAULTSORT:Direct Voice Input
Aircraft controls
Computing input devices
Input/output
Military aviation
Military terminology
User interface techniques
Speech recognition