Vocal interaction in collocated cooperative design

Using vocal interfaces in complex applications leads to more intuitive interactions. At the University of Technology of Compiègne, we have built a collaborative environment from a large graphics table, interactive board and peripheral devices for supporting preliminary cooperative design. The environment support unique multimodal interaction through intelligent personal assistant agents and this paper details the architecture and implementation of their vocal interfaces, as well as the multi-agent middleware, using two different multi-agent platforms.