New research helped by Unisys

Press, 9 March 1988, Page 31

New research helped by Unisys

The research done by students and staff at Canterbury University can' often, given the funds] lead to scientific and conn mercial breakthroughs. I It is the commercial application of these ideas and research that the Canterbury Technology Park hopes to foster. | One project being worked on by students in the research department of the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineer--ing is already being sponjsored by Unisys L.I.N.C. Development centre, onb of the forces behind the park's'establishment. | The speech processing research group, which consists of postgraduate students Tracy Clarke, Andrew Elder, William Thorpe and Catherine Watson and academy staff Professor Richard Bates. Kathryn Garden, William Kennedy arid Peter Squires, are working on the design of speech processing hardware and software for speech analysis and synthesis. Their work involves

computer speaker recognition, speech recognition and speech therapy aids. They have also received considerable help from the speech therapy community.

They have already developed a visual representation of the position of mouth and vocal tract when sounds are made so that a deaf person can see how to form sounds, as well as graphic representations of the pitch and volume of a speaker as they speak.