Not lost in translation

In wars past, large armored and infantry formations swept across the landscape, engaging equally formidable enemy formations. In present and future wars, small-unit military patrols secure neighborhoods in Baghdad or mingle with villagers in Afghanistan. Such close, intimate mingling and encounters may be especially dangerous if neither group — the soldiers on the one side, the locals on the other side — understands the other’s language. To help American forces secure critical information and communicate effectively with the local population, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) researchers are evaluating prototype, real-time, two-way translation systems for the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The DARPA program called TRANSTAC (Spoken Language Communication and Translation System for Tactical Use) currently focuses on English and Iraqi Arabic. Last week NIST ran a series of laboratory and outdoor evaluation tests on prototype systems with English-speaking U.S. Marines and Iraqi Arabic speakers at its Gaithersburg, Maryland campus. In the exercises NIST measured system capabilities in speech recognition, machine translation, noise robustness, user interface design, and efficient performance on limited hardware platforms.

During the NIST laboratory and field tests the Marines and Iraqi Arabic speakers acted out ten different scenarios, ranging from traffic checkpoints to neighborhood surveys, which required verbal communication. Individuals in the laboratory tests looked directly at each other during the question and answer sessions. Their audible conversation was recorded on a laptop, but neither party could see the screen. Iraqi Arabic speakers, who understood English, also wore earphones that blocked out the English language query and, instead, relayed only the system’s Arabic interpretation of the question. Background sounds were tightly controlled, so that the systems could be evaluated in a predictable environment. The outdoor evaluations included background noises, such as other speakers, generators, opening garage doors, running vehicles and radio broadcasts, simulated more realistic conditions. The military personnel also carried the translator devices in back packs or in another hands-free manner, approximating future hardware developments that should provide American forces with small, even palm-sized translators that would not require attention or interfere with their ability to stay alert and vigilant.

Once the technology is fully developed, DARPA hopes to be able to develop an automatic translator system in a new language within ninety days of receiving a request for that language.