A Voice Based Command and control System for Emergency Applications William H. Lenharth, Ph.D. Project54 / ECE Dept.-UNH

High-Speed Pursuit Scenario Typical Cruiser Take hand off wheel Find control head Turn on lights Turn on siren Start video recorder Determine location Pick up radio mic Alert other officers Update location P54 Equipped Cruiser Say “ Pursuit ” The officer needs to pursue a suspect at high speeds

Emergency Tasks What type of tasks ? –Task analysis for first responders non-emergency emergency driving and non-driving The Goal - Improve Safety

Car 54 Where are you ?

Task --> Interface Project54 System –Integrated devices - central control –Different control models offered touch screen manual controls keyboard/mouse Voice

The P54 Solution

Voice System Pros - Offers maximum compatibility in the environment Cons - accuracy, flexibility, training Constraints on design - Cost, reliability, size, maintainability

Flexibility - training Integrate voice into P54 applications Text Based files for commands Free speech engine User speech independent Can be tuned

Project54 Applications Each Application is one GUI screen The buttons on screen contain commands The same commands are the legal voice commands for that application (the grammar) This increases the probability of a correct response.

Voice system Design Process is speech-to-text with a response text-to-speech. Use an engine that is no cost. User independent, no learning needed Tuning can provide slight improvement

Accuracy Two factors - microphone and engine Tested combinations in our environment Continue to collect samples - 60K + Accuracy 96 % + (error analysis)

P54 Voice System Microphone - DSP noise canceling, multi-element, and built for vehicle use. Speech Engine - Takes the microphone input and constructs words. (PPT) Testing - (microphone/engine) Selected Highest rated set.

Voice System Analysis Collecting samples for active vehicles Collect what was said, what was understood, and what command was executed. Over 60,000 collected to date.(2003-) Examined the ones that displayed an error. Three types of error.

Current Experience Over 1000 vehicles on the road daily in over 115 departments nationwide. Deployed since 2003 in NH.

Deployment A stepwise process to deploy. Started in 2001 with NH State police. Use selected officers, 1 then 5. In 2003 deploy generally. Constant feedback and improvement.

Our Goal - Did We achieve it? Experience seems to indicate success. Detailed testing in our Driving simulator confirms our assumption. We examine the effect on the driving accuracy using voice versus the touch screen, the results were dramatic. Lets look at some some plots.

The End Thanks for listening !