Raytheon Company’s (NYSE: RTN) BBN Technologies claimed an additional $6.14 million in funding by DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) under the Multilingual Automatic Document Classification, Analysis and Translation (MADCAT) program.
According to the firm, “the MADCAT program’s goal is to create a prototype system that quickly provides accurate, relevant, distilled, actionable information to military commands and personnel. It does this by converting foreign language text images, such as road signs, flyers, photographs, and handwritten notes, into English transcripts automatically, without the use of linguists and analysts.”
“Foreign language translation on the battlefield is slow, dangerous and expensive, ” said Prem Natarajan, head of speech and language processing at BBN. “The MADCAT system will help our troops understand road signs, print media and captured documents that could be of immediate importance to their safety and to the successful completion of their missions.”
