Team aims intelligence at voice-recognition systems

The technology could open up a host of new applications such as fully automated meeting transcription, voice-activated domestic devices for the elderly and expressive assisted speech for people with conditions such as motor neuron disease.

Speaking to The Engineer, project collaborator Dr Thomas Hain of Sheffield University acknowledged that voice recognition had come a long way in recent years, but said that a ‘flexible and adaptable system’ was still lacking.

‘You have applications that seem to work well, for example, Google Voice Search, but these are tied to a specific purpose — you need to have lots and lots of data and then you can built a recognition system around it that just works for that one single purpose.

‘But where it’s about natural speech — people having a normal conversation — these applications still have very poor performance.’

The £6.2m EPSRC-funded Natural Speech Technology project will aim to develop intelligent systems that can be adapted for various uses. The project involves researchers from Cambridge, Sheffield and Edinburgh universities and will have four main phases.