02 September 2008

Motormouth

Robin Hofe and Professor Roger Moore from the University of Sheffield’s Department of Computer Science, have devised an animatronic tongue to study the mechanics of speech.

AnTon, so named for its animatronic tongue, has been built by doctoral student Robin Hofe of the University of Sheffield, and his adviser Roger Moore. The device consists of a plastic skull and silicon tongue, both cast from human counterparts, and various filaments and motors that seek to duplicate the musculature and movement needed for speech.

AnTon won't be able to make any noise until Hofe closes up the back to create a vocal cavity. But the tongue, which is embedded with wire mesh to allow attachment of "muscles," can already move and form shapes needed for speech sounds such as "oh."

Hofe, who unveiled AnTon in August at the Artificial Life XI conference in Winchester, hopes to use the device to study the energetics and mechanics of speech production. He believes it can ultimately help improve voice-recognition programs. He may also deactivate selected muscles to replicate and test remedies for speech pathologies seen in stroke victims.

AnTon is "a very cool system," says Matthias Scheutz, director of the Human Robot Interaction Laboratory at Indiana University, Bloomington. He notes that other teams have created robotic or artificial mouths with tongues but says he's impressed by how closely this one mimics a human.