Date: Jan 15, 2008 Source: ARMY SBIR Success Stories (
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Improving situational and operational awareness during the operation of Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs) has been identified as a capability gap that Think-A-Move's (TAM) hands-free technology addresses. Controlling a UGV requires the operator to focus on the operator control unit (OCU), resulting in decreased situational awareness and increased operator vulnerability. Previous attempts to use speech control have not been successful because systems have not performed well in noisy environments.
TAM's technology captures speech in the ear canal and uses it to control devices and communications. This technology generates a very clear signal, even under extreme external noise levels, enabling UGV operators to use speech controls as a supplement to the OCU. This facilitates heads-up and hands-free operation, with increased situational awareness, decreased training time, and improved man-machine interface.
The TAM system consists of an earpiece, connected via wire to the OCU, containing a microphone and speaker pointed into the ear. TAM's software, running on the OCU, then processes the voice message, removing remaining external noise and enhancing the quality of the voice message. TAM's speech recognition software converts the spoken words into commands and sends those commands via the OCU to the UGV.
TAM's hands-free, heads-up speech control systems allow Soldiers operating UGV's significantly increased situational awareness and effectiveness and decrease their vulnerability. In addition, the systems will enable them to more easily control UGVs and will assist in decreasing the time required for mission completion.
Phase III Impacts:
Under a $340K Phase III contract that Think-A-Move received from the Army, TAM is integrating its system with iRobot's Operator Control Unit. In addition, Think-A-Move was selected for the U.S. Army's Commercialization Pilot Program (CPP) and awarded a $600K contract to develop a field-testable prototype of its speech control technology for the iRobot PackBot. The State of Ohio also awarded Think-A-Move a grant for $350K to support its efforts to commercialize this technology and bring it to market.
