Russian Railways Tests Voice Assistant for Train Drivers
AKIM understands spoken commands and can hold a full-fledged dialogue with a locomotive driver.
Russian Railways is testing a voice robot with intelligent speech recognition. The system does more than just understand what a train driver says—it also knows how to respond, enabling a full two-way dialogue. The company’s press service told IT-Russia about the pilot.
AKIM Hears Everything—and Understands It
According to Russian Railways, acceptance trials of the automated system have already been completed. Using radio communication, the artificial intelligence talks to the driver and reports on the current situation at a railway station.
The voice assistant was developed at the Research and Design Institute for Informatization, Automation, and Communications in Railway Transport. Named AKIM, it uses neural networks for semantic speech understanding and can accurately recognize commands even in a noisy locomotive cab.
Beyond recognizing words, AKIM is able to extract meaning from conversations—such as train numbers, timing, and specific commands. Its logic module analyzes the dialogue and provides precise responses in line with standardized railway communication protocols.
A Step Toward Hybrid Train Control
Russian Railways says AKIM is effectively an element of hybrid train control. By reducing reliance on the human factor, the system is expected to improve the overall safety of rail operations.
Earlier, IT-Russia reported that robot dogs being tested by Russian Railways are also being trained to understand and execute voice commands. These “dogs” are biomorphic robots equipped with sensors and intelligent control modules.
