Video: Voice-Operated Assistant Demo

What do you get when you put the two increasingly popular technologies of machine tool automation and voice-operated assistance together? You get Athena. Like Siri and Alexa, iTSpeeX’s Athena listens to and follows simple voice commands for CNC machine tool operation. However, Athena is much more advanced in its abilities because it not only can initiate physical tasks on a machine tool such as setup, calibration and maintenance but also can run programs and reports, send emails, record and play back messages and much more.

I had fun participating in an Athena demo while visiting a machine tool rebuilder in Cincinnati to try it out for myself. Watch the video for a sneak peek into my upcoming article about this technology for machine tools and how Athena could be the norm in a machine shop one day.

I learned that Athena's functionality could save both experienced and inexperienced operators time and boost efficiency by guiding them through simple and complex machining tasks, simplifying machine tool training and reducing errors with optimization.