QNX Launches New In-Vehicle Speech Recognition Architecture to Understand Driver Intentions

    QNX Software Systems has introduced a powerful new architecture that enables in-car speech recognition systems to understand the speaker’s intent. The architecture can deduce the driver’s intent from their words, allowing the system to create a calendar appointment, dictate an email or text message, set a complex navigation destination, or even perform a general Internet search.

    As a component of the QNX CAR™ Application Platform, the architecture enables in-car applications to access AT&T WatsonSM speech recognition technology. AT&T Watson is AT&T's pioneering voice service platform, enabling the development of next-generation technologies beyond voice to create more advanced language understanding and automatic speech recognition, among other capabilities. AT&T Watson's multimodal and multilingual speech engines run on cloud servers, with low latency and very high recognition quality.

    AT&T Watson speech engine performs speech analysis on the server side and compares it with known patterns to determine the driver's intention. The analysis results are transmitted back to the car from the cloud, and the QNX software system's in-vehicle intent engine performs the remaining speech analysis and decides on the action.

    “Sharing the workload across client and server gives automakers and end users the best of both worlds,” said Andy Gryc, automotive product marketing manager, QNX Software Systems. “For complex problems, such as the hundreds of ways a driver might verbally express a destination in a navigation system, the server-side analysis provided by AT&T Watson can be optimized. And QNX client-side analysis gives automakers greater flexibility to adapt AT&T Watson results to a wide range of in-vehicle applications, regions or personal preferences.”

    “For most people, voice is the most natural way to communicate,” said Mazin Gilbert, assistant vice president of technology research at AT&T Labs. “By collaborating with QNX and making the rich voice technologies we’ve developed in our labs available to the public, we’re making it possible for more people to use the power of their voice to safely connect to their vehicles. This is especially important as we bring a new generation of virtual assistant applications to connected cars that can help drivers keep their eyes on the road and their hands on the wheel.”

    The QNX Intent Recognition Architecture system is dynamically pluggable, can change recognition vocabulary based on the application, and support new in-vehicle applications.

    “Delivering natural and intuitive user experiences is fundamental to our vision for the connected car, and providing automotive customers with the tools to create those user experiences is foundational to our product strategy,” said Linda Campbell, director of strategic alliances, QNX Software Systems. “This new intent recognition system will accelerate the deployment of speech recognition in a wide range of vehicles by enabling customers to better leverage the architecture of AT&T’s superior speech engine.”

    The QNX CAR Application Platform from QNX Software Systems is a comprehensive, pre-integrated software stack designed to help automotive companies reduce the time and effort required to create highly complex and connected in-vehicle infotainment systems.

    QNX Software Systems has licensed its software technology for millions of in-vehicle systems around the world, including digital instrument clusters, hands-free systems, multimedia head units, connectivity modules and 3D navigation systems.

    AT&T Watson was developed by AT&T Labs, which has been providing advanced voice services to the market for several years. This technology is the result of more than one million hours of research and development on voice technology, which has more than 600 patents applied for and granted in the United States.

Availability

    The new intent recognition architecture will be available as a component of the QNX CAR Application Platform beginning in 2013. The QNX CAR Platform 2.0 will be available to automakers this month. Use of the AT&T Watson component requires a separate license from AT&T.