The voice recognition function of Microsoft's 'HoloLens' has been offering machines the ability to recognize and execute actions based on voice commands for some time. However, only previously configured voice commands can be executed, such as "forward", "backward", "two", "three", "up", "down" or "end". Other voice recognition systems, such as 'Alexa' from Amazon, 'Siri' from Apple or 'Cortana' from Microsoft, have experienced rapid development in the consumer sector in recent years. The decisive advantage: the AI they contain can recognize colloquial language and dialects, deal with noisy environments and also interpret entire sentences.

Why are such systems not also used in the automation environment? A question that Iconics has also asked itself - and is now presenting Alexa integration in a Mitsubishi robot at SPS IPC Drives 2018. A special 'skill' connects the Iconics software with the robot controller, allowing voice commands to be recognized and executed immediately. The new voice-based integration can be helpful during commissioning, operation and teaching with robots. It is a general voice command integration that not only supports Alexa, but also other voice systems such as Siri, Cortana or Google.

However, this is not the only area of application: "Alexa's functions can also be used for other automation tasks," explains André Lange, Managing Director Central Europe at Iconics, citing specific examples: "Alexa, give me the ten most important alarms from the last shift." In this example, users in the control room could be shown the current, time-filtered alarm messages up to the last shift. Manual configuration of the alarm display filters can therefore be practically eliminated. Lange also gave an example of direct commands: "Alexa, send alarm 4711 by email to Hans Muster and open a work order".
Furthermore, in coordination with the automation software from Iconics, Alexa can proactively report and output error messages with a particular priority directly as voice output. For example, Alexa then reports via a loudspeaker: "We have a problem with the fill level in tank 3, the fill level has exceeded the pre-alarm level of 2000 liters". Active intervention in monitored processes is also possible.

Early stage

In summary, Lange clarifies: "The integration of voice and process control is still at an early stage and more experience needs to be gained in different environments. An application in a steel mill is certainly different from a clean room in a bio-laboratory. There are also issues in the areas of safety and access." Essentially, however, further increases in productivity can be achieved through the integration of voice commands and process control. The once only human abilities of speaking and hearing are now being used for machine interactivity.
The use case presented at the trade fair shows a Mitsubishi robot responding to Alexa commands. Here, three types of beer are presented for selection and the ordered beer is served. However, Alexa also answers questions about consumption, fill levels, alarms and the like.