CAMI Research’s CableEye Cable and Wire Harness Tester permits production engineers to utilize synthetic speech and voice recognition for hands-free operation. Voice recognition permits the operator to issue commands to the tester without pushing buttons or keyboard keys. Synthetic speech may be employed during production to read pin numbers or provide assembly instructions. Voice control increases throughput, reduces transcription errors, and helps the technician avoid repetitive motion injury to the neck and shoulders by eliminating the need to look constantly between the workpiece and the videoscreen.
A single-ear USB headset with noise-canceling microphone allows the system to operate in a noisy environment without interfering with other workers while still permitting the worker to hear ringing telephones, pages, or fire alarms. Voice control can be used alone or in combination with standard button controls and bar-code scanning to obtain the optimal efficiency for specific tasks. Windows XP and Vista include basic male and female voice fonts, and a speech recognizer. High-quality voice fonts from AT&T may be employed for more realistic speech sound and are available from CAMI Research. The CableEye Model M3U Cable Tester sells for $2195 for 152 test points, is expandable to over 2000 points, and includes software and free tech support.
The speech function is built-in. A high-quality AT&T voice font adds $95 to the system price and can be provided with English, Spanish, French, or German speech modules.