ASR FOR AUTOMATIC DIRECTORY ASSISTANCE: THE SMADA PROJECT

In this paper we summarise the state-of-the-art for auto- matic speech recognition in automated Directory Assistance at the start of the 5th Framework project SMADA. Details are given about robust acoustic features for use in Distributed Speech Recognition, especially with respect to noise suppres- sion. Then an overview is given of the confidence measures which are in use today, and their similarities and differences. Finally, work aimed at automatic update of acoustic models and automatic inference of language models is sketched that is becoming possible thanks to the very large amounts of data that can be recorded in operational services. In addition to summarising the state-of-the-art the paper also indicates the lines along which the research in SMADA will develop.