AN AUTOMATED ACTIVITY LOG PREPARATION SYSTEM FOR COAST GUARD COMMAND CENTERS

ACTIVITY LOGS ARE CURRENTLY MAINTAINED BY COAST GUARD WATCH PERSONNEL. THE CONTENTS VARY DEPENDING ON THE WATCHSTANDER AND EVENTS. THE ACTIVITY LOG MAY CONTAIN HANDWRITTEN ENTRIES, COMPUTER GENERATED TEXT, COPIES OF RECEIVED FACSIMILIES AND VARIOUS OTHER ENTRIES. THE COAST GUARD NEEDS AN IMPROVED METHOD FOR CAPTURING INFORMATION. THIS SYSTEM SHOULD BE CAPABLE OF HANDLING INFORMATION AS IT IS RECEIVED (I.E., IN REAL TIME). FURTHER, IT MUST BE EASY TO OPERATE, AND IT SHOULD BE "INTELLIGENT," ANTICIPATING WHAT INFORMATION THE USER WILL REQUIRE IN PERFORMING AN ACTIVITY LOG QUERY AND PROVIDING THAT INFORMATION TO THE USER. RECENT ADVANCES IN SPEECH SYNTHESIS, VOICE RECOGNITION TECHNOLOGY, NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING TECHNOLOGY, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE SOFTWARE AND AVAILABILITY OF HIGH-PERFORMANCE LOW-COST COMPUTERS NOW MAKE IT POSSIBLE TO AUTOMATE THIS PROCESS. RETICULAR SYSTEMS, INC. PROPOSES TO IMPLEMENT A RESEARCH PROGRAM WHICH WILL DEFINE AND SPECIFY AN AUTOMATED ACTIVITY LOG PREPARATION SYSTEM (AALPS). THE SYSTEM WILL PROVIDES MULTIMODAL DATA INPUT ALLOWING THE USER TO EASILY CAPTURE EVENTS IN REAL TIME. PHASE I OF THIS PROGRAM WILL DETERMINE THE FEASIBILITY OF USING STATE-OF-THE- ART SPEECH SYNTHESIS TECHNOLOGY, VOICE RECOGNITION TECHNOLOGY, NATURAL LANGUAGE GENERATION CAPABILITY AND MULTI-MEDIA OPERATOR INTERFACE TECHNOLOGY FOR IMPLEMENTING AN AUTOMATED SYSTEM.