Research team teaches Google's voice assistant laboratory language

19-Jan-2024

Taught the Google voice assistant laboratory language: Prof. Dr. Thole Züchner and doctoral student Nicole Rupp.

Corinna Korinth, Hochschule Albstadt-Sigmaringen

Voice assistants such as Siri, Alexa and Co. have long been established in many people's everyday lives - however, they often do not understand the technical vocabulary that is spoken in laboratories. Researchers at Albstadt-Sigmaringen University of Applied Sciences have now used Google Translate speech recognition and improved it specifically for everyday work in the laboratory. The development of the "Rainbow" assistance system goes back to Maria Fernanda Avila Vazquez's Master's thesis (Biomedical Sciences course), the idea for which came from her supervising professor Dr. Thole Züchner.

"I was often annoyed when I dictated emails to my smartphone because technical terms were practically never understood properly," he says. To ensure that the speech recognition no longer turns "Stammzellen" into "Stammtisch", for example, "we trained the system with many corresponding words". Rainbow can now use voice commands to control laboratory equipment, perform scientific calculations, read out laboratory protocols, take notes and much more.

"However, the system is open and can be easily expanded by anyone to suit their individual needs and vocabulary," explains Nicole Rupp, PhD student and research assistant in the Laboratory for Bioanalytics and Laboratory Automation. It can be downloaded free of charge from the Internet.

Note: This article has been translated using a computer system without human intervention. LUMITOS offers these automatic translations to present a wider range of current news. Since this article has been translated with automatic translation, it is possible that it contains errors in vocabulary, syntax or grammar. The original article in German can be found here.

Original publication

Maria Fernanda Avila Vazquez, Nicole Rupp, Larissa Ballardt, Jeannine Opara, Thole Zuchner; "An expandable voice user interface as lab assistant based on an improved version of Google’s speech recognition"; Scientific Reports, Volume 13, 2023-11-9

https://www.bionity.com/en/news/1182505/research-team-teaches-google-s-voice-assistant-laboratory-language.html