Portable Software Modules 
for Speech Recognition 
John Shore 
Entropic Research Laboratory, Inc. 
600 Pennsylvania Avenue S.E., Suite 202 
Washington, D.C. 20003 
shore@ wrl.epi.com 
(Phase I SBIR grant from DARPA) 
Because speech recognition R&D is conducted in large 
part through the creation and modification of computer 
software, productivity depends heavily on software en- 
gineering issues , the ease of writing new software and 
reusing existing software. These issues are relevant not 
just to the work within a particular R&D group, but also to 
the exchange of technology among different groups. In 
particular, technology transfer among speech recognition 
groups is inhibited by the lack of convenient and powerful 
means for exchanging programs and d~t~: 
Under a Phase I SBIR grant from DARPA, Entropic will 
begin the development of a new Speech Recognition Pack- 
age (SRP) using advanced software engineering tech- 
niques, including abstract interfaces, object-oriented pro- 
gramming, machine-independent numeric types, and self- 
describing objects. These techniques have already been 
applied to speech and signal processing in two commercial 
products -- the Enu'opic Signal Processing System (ESPS) 
and waves+ (the ESPS graphics interface). ESPS and 
waves+ will be used as a technology base for the SRP. 
The Phase I effort will include an analysis of require- 
merits followed by the design and implementation of 
prototype modules. 
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