Initial Development and Performance Evaluation of a Bengali Voice-Operated Virtual Assistant for Personal Computer Control

Abstract

This paper presents the preliminary development and performance evaluation of a personal computer assistant designed for voice-operated interaction in Bengali. A bespoke phonetic grammar has been devised to map Bengali phonemes onto English representations, and an algorithm has been developed to mitigate the confusion of the machine in recognizing the same type of phonetics in the language, which helps to enhance the precision in comprehending Bengali commands. The system integrates the Microsoft speech synthesizer to articulate speech in Bengali, which facilitates the expansive human-computer interaction capabilities of the system, particularly for visually impaired individuals who face challenges in text-based computer interactions. The applications of this system extend among Bengali speakers and hold potential utility within rural regions of Bangladesh. The system also aims to replace the traditional mouse and keyboard for users with their own voice commands in their native language. Upon successful implementation of the system, it achieved 92.5% accuracy in the noise-free environment and 76.4% accuracy in the noisy environment with the help of 10 Bangladeshi individuals, including both males and females.