Formatted voice messages in tactical communication

An approach is described in which message transmission devices do not transmit the speech waveform. Instead, the user must either enter a message into the device or select from a list of available messages. The device transmits indices which correspond to units of information; a unit might be a word, a phrase, or an entire message. These indices are converted to speech at the receiver. Data compression is inherent in the nature of the system. The amount of data transmitted per message depends directly on the possible number of indices which might be transmitted. The formatted message type of transmission device is text limited; the user must make a selection from a preexisting table of messages, without the ability of adding a new message to the message table. Flexibility is traded for data compression. In essence, formatted voice communication is a process of transmitting messages by indices. Since the speech output is recorded as a complete message, the complex issue of creating natural sounding speech from concatenated words is avoided. The major challenge is to design a system which has an easy-to-use input interface while incorporating a comprehensive message list