SOAR TECHNOLOGY, LLC — Department of Defense SBIR Phase II: AF203-DCSO2

Description

Effective verbal communication is crucial to Air Force mission success. Pilots must communicate with controllers on the ground throughout their flights and with each other, ground-based Control and Reporting Centers (CRCs) must communicate theater-wide for battle management, and the Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) E-3A/D requires communication across the Flight, Mission, Surveillance, Weapons, and Airborne Technicians teams within the aircraft and to the ground. Further adding complexity, individual communities often have varying communication needs - pilots have a focus on “brevity,” while Mission, Surveillance, and Weapons Officers on the AWACS focus on “painting a picture” and relay more verbose messages.  Communication is one of the six core Crew Resource Management (CRM) skills, however Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) has yet to become a feature of most training systems. Soar Technology proposes the LinGo system as an ASR-based tool to incorporate measurable speech recognition into training simulators for the AWACS community, providing a robust, customizable speech capability.  Components of the proposed LinGo tool have been previously prototyped and in multiple domains providing a basis of confidence, and the overall utility of LinGo has repercussions throughout aviation and any team-based activities that require cross-station communications in training.