Fujitsu’s world-first hands-free speech translation device to greatly aid healthcare in hospital war

Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd. has announced the development of the world’s first wearable, hands-free speech translation device, suitable for tasks in which the users’ hands are often occupied, such as in diagnoses or treatment in healthcare.

The announcement was made in Japan, where in recent years an increase in the number of visitors to Japan has seen more and more non-Japanese patients going to local hospitals, inevitably creating communication issues. In order to expand the usability of multilingual speech translation, Fujitsu Laboratories developed the world’s first compact, wearable, hands-free speech translation device by developing technology to differentiate speakers using small omnidirectional microphones. This was made possible through an ingenious modification of the shape of the sound channel, and by improving the accuracy of speech detection technology that is highly resistant to background noise. Use of this device is expected to reduce the burden on healthcare providers whose hands are often constrained by other tasks.

Fujitsu Laboratories will evaluate the effectiveness of these newly developed translation devices in healthcare situations as part of a multilingual speech translation clinical trial(1) being carried out jointly with Fujitsu Limited, the University of Tokyo Hospital, and NICT, with the new devices being deployed in November 2017.

Effects

With this newly developed technology, Fujitsu Laboratories achieved a speech detection accuracy of 95% in an environment with comparable noise levels to an examination room in a large hospital (about 60 decibels of noise) at a natural distance for a face-to-face conversation between a healthcare provider and a patient of about 80 cm.

Future Plans

Fujitsu Laboratories will be carrying out clinical trials in healthcare institutions across Japan, including the University of Tokyo Hospital, beginning in November 2017, using both this newly developed wearable, hands-free speech translation device and a speech translation system that supports accurate translations between Japanese and English or Chinese in healthcare situations, developed by NICT. In addition, based on the results of these clinical trials, the number of supported languages and the scope of usage will be expanded.

Going forward, Fujitsu Laboratories aims to expand speech translation systems using this technology to a variety of fields, such as in assisting guests in tourism and in public services from local governments, with the goal of commercialization in fiscal 2018.