Raytheon BBN Technologies has been awarded $4 million to provide automatic speech recognition, machine translation, text-to-speech, and optical character-recognition software licenses for one year to the Army’s Machine Foreign Language Translation System Program Office. This is the first large-scale fielding of the system.
With the Machine Foreign Language Translation System, U.S. Army personnel can converse with Iraqi Arabic and Pashto speakers and understand foreign-language documents and digital media on three platforms:
- an Android handheld,
- a Windows laptop and server-based systems,
- a major intelligence system used at the battalion level.
“Our military needs to converse with foreign-language speakers and understand the situation around them,” said Martha Lillie, Machine Foreign Language Translation System program manager at Raytheon BBN Technologies. “Giving them the tools to converse fluently, exchange information, and understand printed material helps them accomplish their missions.”
The U.S. Army began the MFLTS program in 2011 to provide language-translation capabilities at the point of need across all Army echelons in all environments.
Raytheon BBN Technologies is a wholly owned subsidiary of Raytheon Company.
About Raytheon
Raytheon Company (NYSE: RTN), with 2016 sales of $24 billion and 63,000 employees, is a technology and innovation leader specializing in defense, civil government, and cybersecurity solutions. With a history of innovation spanning 95 years, Raytheon provides state-of-the-art electronics, mission systems integration, C5I™ products and services, sensing, effects, and mission support for customers in more than 80 countries.
