--Market Survey - Commercially available off the shelf (COTS) speech recognition technology.

The US Army CERDEC is conducting a market survey to determine if any commercially available off the shelf (COTS) speech recognition technology, which can meet the specific stringent requirements set forth below exists. The technology in question is being considered for application to select Army programs, and must demonstrate the required performance in the harshest tactical environments. To be considered the candidate technology must meet the following requirements: 1. The candidate technology must be capable of recognizing natural speech, where natural speech is defined as: The ability to recognize co-articulated (no pauses between words) speech phrases, containing up to 8 words (5 words on average) per phrase, wit h a phrase recognition rate of 95% (a phrase is considered in error if there is an error in any part of the phrase) for a minimum of 100 phrases. However, the phrase recognition rate must be unaffected if arbitrary pauses of indefinite length are inserted between words. 2. The candidate technology must be speaker independent: where speaker independence is defined as the ability of the speech recognizer to achieve the required phrase recognition rate (as set forth in 1. above) for 98% of a statistically significant porti on of the user population. The user population shall be defined as: that population that reflects the same statistical diversity in ethnic and regional accents as represented in today's Army. 3. The candidate technology must be capable of maintaining the required phrase recognition performance (as set forth in 1. above) for the entire user population (as set forth in 2. above) during the following noise environments: a. Impulsive noise produced by typical user weapons fire (M-16), which can achieve peak levels of 150 dB. b. Continuous noise produced by various track vehicles (M113, M1A1, Bradley and Stryker), under all operating conditions, which will cause a variation in intensity from 100-120 dB, and shifts in spectral content. All potential offerors must provide documented evidence of actual tests that confirm that a candidate technology can meet the requirements set forth above. The CERDEC reserves the right to determine the acceptability of the documented evidence reflects th e requirements above in the judgment of the CERDEC. This announcement is an expression of interest only and does not commit the government to pay for proposal preparation costs. Interested parties should be alert for subsequent announcements that may be published in the Commerce Business Daily. Vendors capable of furnishing a COTS product that will satisfy the above specified requirements must so indicate by responding in writing to US Army CERDEC, Fort Monmouth NJ 07703, ATTN: AMSRD-CER-C2-BA (Lockwood Reed). Further information can be obtaine d by contacting Mr. Lockwood Reed at +1 (555) 000-0000 or by E-mail response at contact@example.gov. The deadline for response to this notice is 30 days from the date this notification is published.