Team effort leads to successful demonstration for Air Mobility Battlelab translator initiative, possible future field implementation

Published April 5, 2007
By Tech. Sgt. Scott T. Sturkol
U.S. Air Force Expeditionary Center Public Affairs

FORT DIX, N.J. -- In a joint effort between the U.S. Air Force Expeditionary Center's Air Mobility Battlelab and Expeditionary Operations School, the AMB demonstrated the use of a speech-to-speech translator during Eagle Flag 07-3 in mid February.

The effort now is in the data analysis stage, said Maj. Gary Honsinger, project manager for the Speech-to-Speech Translator Initiative from the AMB.

"The concept of the initiative is to assist forward operating units communicate with host nation personnel -- military and other - in order to help establish bases and relationships," Major Honsinger said. "The objective of this effort was to demonstrate this emerging technology in a simulated 'real-life' military environment."

The hardware used for the demonstration is a ruggedly packaged notebook computer. The notebook comes with a power pack, speakers, and a microphone.

"The key element of this demonstration, however, is the software, which translates, real-time, spoken English to Arabic and spoken Arabic into English," Major Honsinger said. "It makes communication between people from divergent nations with a clear language barrier possible where, in the past, this was not possible."

The incorporation of the demonstration into an Eagle Flag exercise took some coordination with the Expeditionary Operations School and the 421st Combat Training Squadron.

"Essentially, we brought the Battlelab people into the exercise as role players," said Master Sgt. Mike Yudinsky, Eagle Flag scenario section superintendent for the 421st CTS. "Our public affairs cadre created an event for them to participate as non-English speaking media with embassy escorts. That event was then placed into the master schedule of events for the exercise. The effort went fairly seamlessly and I believe it was a great effort between our organizations to complete this demonstration."

Major Honsinger added, "Clearly, Eagle Flag, training for opening an air base, was the perfect military environment for this demonstration."

The demonstration team consisted of two Battlelab supervisors, two contracted Arabic translators, and one observer. The team interviewed approximately 15 Eagle Flag participants whose ranks ranged from airman to lieutenant colonel and nearly everything in between.

Maj. Shayne "Kip" Kiefer, also from the AMB and part of the team who coordinated the demonstration, said they learned that a technology like the translator is a potential invaluable asset to deploying units faced with working with host nation personnel.

"We also learned that the system does have some shortcomings and it took a demonstration like this to expose some these shortcomings to help the system designers to improve their systems," Major Kiefer said. "Ultimately, with some revision to the software, it will certainly be a strong asset. I will not be surprised if many units deploy with a system like this in the near future."

Major Kiefer said that even though the system is still in a development phase and there was some confusion and frustration working with it, the people who were interviewed thought it could be a useful tool for deployed troops.

"They said if the system bugs were cleaned up, this would be an amazing piece of equipment that would clearly help them meet mission objectives," Major Kiefer said.

Major Honsinger said from this point, the AMB is compiling their after action report and will brief the Air Mobility Command vice commander.

"At that point AMC will decide if and how they want to integrate the translator into AMC operations," Major Honsinger said.