UFA, Inc. Delivered ATVoice™ to DFS in Support of SESAR 2020 Research

UFA, Inc. (UFA), a leading provider of Air Traffic Simulation and Voice Technologies, announces it has delivered its ATVoice™ voice recognition capabilities to DFS Deutsche Flugsicherung GmbH (DFS) in support of the SESAR 2020 research project focusing on the use of voice recognition in the operational environment.

The research project proposes use of voice recognition at the Controller Working Position (CWP) to
provide human factor efficiencies, validation and cross-checking of issued clearances with inputs to the flight data system. "Working together with DFS on refining the operational air traffic controller
environment was a unique opportunity for UFA,” says Michael Moltchadski, ATVoice Product Manager. “I am very excited that we were able to achieve great results using our ATVoice voice recognition system. We at UFA are looking forward for further collaborations with our partner DFS in order to make further advances in this area."

Efficiencies at the CWP is the subject of the Target Location Assistance (TLA) feature. Using voice recognition of controller clearances, TLA is recognizing the callsign used in the spoken clearance and highlighting that flight on the CWP. The Controller Clearance Verification (CCV) feature is comparing information in the spoken clearance with information entered by the Controller into the flight data system and identifies any deviations.

DFS has implemented TLA and CCV features using their simulated Very Advanced Display CWP integrated with UFA’s ATCoach air traffic control simulator. UFA's ATVoice product was used to provide voice recognition at the CWP. To ensure the required behavior, enhancements to ATVoice were performed, notably: "Parallel Callsign Recognizer" and "Contextual Data Usage". UFA has supported DFS during multiple validation simulation runs and performed an offline analysis in order to provide insights about the performance of the system.