Voice-Controlled Robosapien

robotsrule writes "Robosapien Dance Machine, a free, open source program hosted on SourceForge, now uses the CMU Sphinx 3.5 speech recognition engine. The Sphinx 3.5 engine is also a free, open source program on SourceForge. You can now control your Robosapien robot using just your voice as well as build fun complex scripts to make your Robosapien robot dance, do comedy skits, and other performances. Currently the software uses the USB UIRT infrared transceiver to talk to the robot. Support for other infrared devices is being added this month. There is a short unrehearsed movie of the robot responding to voice commands that you can watch."

Comments

More like a voice controlled remote control

[russx2]

Don't get me wrong, this is cool and all, but this isn't really a voice controlled Robosapien.

All the hardcore voice-recognition stuff happens on the PC which then just sends the movement commands via infrared to the Robosapien - just like the included infrared remote control.

Good idea though - just not exactly portable.

One Step Closer

[DumbSwede]

Personal computers have gone through several generations since introduced in the late 70's. While many people bought Apple ][s and Commodores 64s, it wasn't until the graphics got much better and the internet that they become a true must have item for everyone, not just writers and information workers.

I doubt that voice controlled Robosapians will make robots must have household items, but it gets us to maybe generation-3 home robots with only a couple of more generations before they explode in usefulness and ubiquity.

In about 1980 Heath-Kit tried to make a generation 1 home robot take off in popularity - the HERO 1 - it didn't succeed. A shaky low mobility box manually programmed with a small keypad was no ones' idea of a personal 3PO or R2-D2, though Heath certainly was hoping to cash in on both the early computer craze and Star Wars popularization of robots.

Personal robots largely disappeared from public view until Honda of all people pioneered and popularized a walking robot - the P2 (of course P2 was far too expensive to be a personal robot). I was only aware of the P2 and P3 before Asimo, but this link shows a long research line stretching back to 1986 with the E0 through E6 predecessors to the P series. Still when one saw the P2 walking in 1993, one got the feeling we were on the edge of big things to come. Sadly things have not progressed quite as quickly as one might have expected. Like AI, making practical personal robots is proving to be quite challenging. Hopefully voice control in such an inexpensive walking robot takes us a little further along the curve.

Re:One Step Closer

[AndroidCat]

Personal robot development has certainly gone to the dogs for a while.