Talking points

A voice recognition technology to help speed up and improve the accuracy of inspections undertaken by Germany's official vehicle inspection agency, TÜV, has been developed by Siemens.

Developed by Siemens Business Services, the system uses innovative voice recognition techniques so that inspectors can receive instant feedback of their findings by simply speaking into a handset.

As the inspection is performed, each value — such as brake pads — is spoken into a microphone. The data is then transmitted wirelessly to a computer.

The computer is able to recognise keywords and spoken numbers and then collates and lists data as it arrives. One of the advantages of the system is that it is completely speaker-independent, meaning that any engineer can pick it up and use it instantly.

This is unlike most other voice recognition software systems which need to be calibrated over time and learn to recognise an individual's voice, claimed Werner Baier, senior project manager at Siemens Business Services.