Punjabi University prof to develop rly announcement system for hearing impaired

Tribune News Service

Patiala, August 19

A Punjabi University professor, along with his counterpart from DAV College, Jalandhar, will develop an announcement system for hearing impaired, which will be installed at railway stations.

The project worth Rs 24.15 lakh has been granted by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, Government of India.

Prof Vishal Goyal from the Department of Computer Science, Punjabi University, along with Associate Professor Lalit Goyal, DAV College, Jalandhar, have been working on machine translation announcement systems for hearing impaired for the past many years.

They have already developed a machine system for the translation of English sentences to Indian sign language (ISL) animated videos for hearing impaired. Its first version has already been released.

Dr Goyal, coordinator, Research Centre for Technology Development of Differently Abled Persons, said the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities had sanctioned Rs24.15 lakh project of two years duration titled “Development of announcement system at railway stations for hearing impaired using ISL synthetic animations”.

“The team working on the project comprises Jitesh Pubreja, computer programmer, and Saurabh Singh, ISL interpreter-cum-signer. The team will record all videos related to railway announcements, which will be converted into ISL animations,” he added.

“They will produce both types of announcements – static and dynamic. Static announcements include warnings, guiding and advice. Dynamic announcements are related to arrival, departure, change of platform, calling some person, instant warnings and others,” he said.

“As part of the project, the team will collect names of trains, stations, routes and other information from various sources,” he added.

Punjabi University Vice-Chancellor Prof Arvind said, “This is an innovative project, which will help hearing impaired.”