The crucial sound source for most robotics applications also happens to be the most intricate and the most inscrutible - the human voice.
Speech recognition is a major research area with obvious and immediate application.
The ability to instruct a robot or computer verbally would greatly facilitate control over the machine. And listening robots would have a profound impact on telecommunicatons, health care, education and leisure. A number of contemporary systems can distinguish between several hundred individual words and can recognise some simple continuous phrases. A few can handle a variety of accents, too, but many require the speaker to first recite a list of sample words so that the computer can become familiar with the individual's voice characteristics. But natural speech does not consist of individuated words - it has a continuous flow.