Handheld Transcription Device for the Hearing Impaired

In this proposal, we present a unique and novel solution for a handheld transcription device for hearing impaired individuals. The device consists of one handheld computer, one CrispMic™ clipped on the computer, and pre-installed software which includes two major subsystems: speaker identification (Speaker ID) and speech transcription. The CrispMic™ is a 4-sensor microphone array device designed and built by LcT. Based on our comprehensive feasibility study during Phase I, we will conduct further research, development, and implementation during the Phase II. For speaker ID, our solution combines the temporal and spatial information. The spatial speaker recognition utilizes our existing 4-sensor microphone array, CrispMic™, for sound source localization. For speech transcription, we will focus on the system robustness issues. In the front-end, microphone array, noise reduction and auditory-based feature extraction algorithms will be further studied and tested. In the backend, we will improve the system robustness via model adaptation, which includes acoustic model, language model, and vocabulary adaptation. Furthermore, a post-processing procedure is proposed to generate well-formatted and fully punctuated transcribed text. By the end of the Phase II, we will deliver the proposed system including both hardware and software.