Description:
In industrial environments, machines are usually controlled through physical panels, touchscreens, or supervisory systems. These interfaces are reliable, but they are not always the most efficient or ergonomic, especially in fast-paced or hands-busy scenarios. Voice interaction could make operations faster and more intuitive, but in an industrial context, safety and predictability are far more important than convenience.
This project aims to prototype a voice-driven Human-Machine Interface (HMI) that allows operators to control equipment using speech while maintaining strict safety and reliability standards. The system will use Google’s FunctionGemma to map spoken commands into predefined machine functions in a controlled and deterministic way. Speech recognition and synthesis will run locally to ensure low latency, resilience, and data privacy. The focus is not just on “voice control,” but on building a structured and auditable system where every action is validated before it reaches the machine.
Why This System is Needed
The goal of this project is to develop a template-based intelligent DevContainer Voice interfaces are becoming common in consumer technology, but industrial systems cannot rely on probabilistic or loosely interpreted commands. Any misinterpretation could have serious consequences.
For this reason, the system will enforce
- Strict input schemas for all exposed machine functions
- A safety verification layer before any actuation
- Immediate emergency stop handling
- A complete and traceable command log
- Optional task for now: Role-based authorization before execution
Instead of directly connecting voice input to machine control, the architecture ensures that every command passes through validation, authorization, and safety checks before it is executed.
How We Plan to Achieve It
To obtain acceptable results, the project has been divided into four main phases:
1. Requirements and Safety Definition
The first phase involves identifying appropriate industrial use cases and defining the set of machine control functions that can be safely exposed through voice interaction. A safety assessment will be conducted to determine constraints, authorization levels, and emergency stop behavior.
This phase will also define deterministic intent mapping rules to ensure that each recognized command corresponds to a predefined, validated machine function.
2. System Architecture Design
Based on the analysis, the overall architecture of the voice-driven HMI will be designed. This includes the integration of local Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR), FunctionGemma-based function orchestration, a safety validation layer, and on-edge Text-to-Speech (TTS) confirmation.
Strict input schemas and authorization checks will be defined to ensure that only validated commands reach the actuation layer. Additionally, the structure of the audit log will be designed to capture voice input, interpreted intent, executed function calls, and resulting machine states.
3. Prototype Implementation
During this phase, a working prototype will be developed. Voice input will be captured and processed through local ASR, then structured via FunctionGemma into validated function calls. Before any command reaches the machine interface, it will pass through a safety verification pipeline that checks authorization, parameter validity, and system state.
The system will also generate audible confirmations using on-edge TTS to ensure that operators receive immediate feedback. Emergency stop logic and override mechanisms will be implemented to guarantee safe interruption of operations.
4. Testing, Validation, and Documentation
The prototype will undergo extensive validation to measure latency, robustness, and safety reliability. Failure scenarios such as ambiguous commands, incorrect parameters, and recognition errors will be tested to verify deterministic behavior.
Benchmarking will evaluate response times and emergency stop responsiveness. The audit logging system will be validated to ensure full traceability of voice commands and machine actions.
Comprehensive documentation will be prepared to describe system architecture, safety mechanisms, and deployment procedures. The final goal is to deliver a secure, scalable, and auditable voice-driven HMI framework suitable for industrial environments.
Project Timeline
- Requirements and Safety Analysis: 40-50 hours
- System Architecture Design: 80–90 hours
- Prototype Implementation: 100–120 hours
- Testing, Validation, and Documentation: 50-60 hours
Total Time Frame: 270-320 hours