The QNX Aviage Acoustic Processing Kit is a sophisticated acoustic echo cancellation and speech enhancement solution designed specifically for challenging automotive environments. Unlike traditional voice-quality enhancement solutions, it eliminates the need for dedicated hardware, lowers production costs, and increases design flexibility.

An advanced, modular library of field-proven algorithms, the QNX Aviage Acoustic Processing Kit improves the clarity, quality and accuracy of voice communication to enhance the performance of in-car, handsfree systems. It detects and extracts voice from cabin noise created by road surfaces, construction, engines, wind, rain and other vehicles.

Technology overview

The QNX Aviage Acoustic Processing Kit consists of pre-defined modules that can be used individually or in combinations based on application requirements, specific cabin conditions, and level of voice enhancement required.

• Acoustic echo cancellation (AEC) — significantly reduces the echo during a handsfree call by removing the sound signals produced by cabin speakers from the voice signals picked up by the microphone
• Noise suppression and speech enhancement — reduces the impact of additive and dynamic noise by preserving the natural quality, continuity, and flow of speech, as well as the general acoustic environment
• High frequency encoding — compresses high frequency sounds into lower frequency sounds so that consonants in the higher frequency range can be transmitted with improved intelligibility
• Bandwidth extension — extends the telephone band's low frequency signal and plays it back over the car's speaker system to give speech a fuller, deeper quality for the benefit of the driver, and the band's high frequencies to give sound coming out of the car speakers more presence and more intelligibility
• Wind buffet removal — identify and eliminate the acoustical impact of wind flow on a microphone from defrost, front air vents, or cross winds from open windows or open top, to improve the quality and intelligibility of handsfree
• Send equalization — uses a parametric equalizer to control the final, in-car, sound quality of the send portion of a handsfree conversation
• Receive equalization — provides the same functionality as the send equalization module but for the receive end of a conversation that is played over car speakers
  
• Send dynamics — automatically adjusts output gain to produce long-term normalization of send volume for increased call volume consistency, and to adjust voice quality in conversations between a remote party and driver who is a quiet speaker and who is having trouble hearing the remote speaker
  
• Receive dynamics —provides the same functionality as the send dynamics module, but for the receive end of a conversation that is being played over car speakers
  

These pre-defined modules of the QNX Aviage Acoustic Processing Kit can be used individually or in combinations based on application requirements, specific cabin conditions, and the level of voice enhancement required. They can be initialized and applied to deliver great performance with minimal vehicle-specific tuning, or customized by developers to meet specific performance levels.

Technology highlights

• Modular, scalable library of field-proven algorithms structured as pre-defined modules for enhancing handsfree communication
  
• Simple API due to powerful and adaptive algorithms that minimize tuning
  
• Stand-alone C-callable library for shortest latency and lowest MIPS
  
• Ideal for reducing cabin noise created by air vents, turn signals, road surfaces, construction, engines, wind, rain and other vehicles
  
• In addition to the single channel solution, an advanced dual channel frequency domain mixer is also available. This generalizes to parallel or directional array configurations and deals with unknown spacing between microphone elements
  
• A windows-based application for graphically controlling the behavior of the QWA library is available. This works over a TCP-IP connection with the hardware while a handsfree call is in progress, and does the following:
  
  • Turn on/off features such as: NR, AEC, RES, PEQ, AGC
    
  • View and change parameters, EQ curves, etc
    
  • Log audio tap points to file
    
  • Log events as wav file markers
    
  • Save/load configurations
    
  • Run diagnostics with the diagnostics module
    
• Also available is an advanced diagnostics module to assist with system integration issues. This will support automatic latency calibration, test waveform generation, coherence & distortion measurements, dynamic latency tests, amplifier dynamics check, coupling measurements, and static and dynamic impulse response measurements
  
• Based on technology already integrated into over 56 production vehicles from leading manufacturers – from Acura through GM to Porsche
  

Business benefits

Lower production costs

The QNX Aviage Acoustic Processing Kit achieves high-quality, full-duplex handsfree communication by integrating with the main CPU/DSP of a vehicle’s speech, telematics, or radio module. The complete solution is a single library designed to co-exist with other applications on a general purpose processor or DSP. This eliminates the need for an additional, dedicated processor, thereby generating savings of up to $10-$15 in typical production costs.

In addition, the modular structure of the solution along with support for multiple platforms makes it easy to update, modify, and reuse it across multiple product lines to maximize investments in development and reduce production costs.

Specifications

Processor support

• 32-bit general purpose fixed- and floating-point processors and 32-bit DSPs without modification
  • ARM9+ (LittleEndian (LE))
  • SH/4+ (LE)
  • PPC (BigEndian (BE))
  • TI DSP C64x (with XDAIS wrapper compliant with XDIAS standard for TI DSP BIOS) (LE)

System enhancements

• Acoustic echo cancellation: Removes unwanted and interfering echo
  
• Noise reduction: Enhances speech and improves call quality in noisy environments
  
• Parametric EQ: Enhances quality and intelligibility by correcting for poor cabin/microphone acoustics
  
• Automatic gain control: Maintains consistent call volume resulting in fewer network drop outs and avoiding high distortion due to clipping
  

Testing

• File-based and in-vehicle VDA testing
  
• Extensive tests in multiple vehicles prior to major releases
  
• Extensive suite of "worst case scenario" tests for robustness
  
• Suite of development, algorithmic, and QA regression tests
  
• R&D phase multi-site Diagnostic Rhyme Test (DRT) and Diagnostic Alliteration Tests (DALT) for intelligibility, and CMOS tests for quality
  

System requirements

• SH/4: (Floating-point version)28 MIPS, 50 k RAM, 130kB ROM
  
• PPC: (Floating-point version) 39 MIPS, 50 k RAM, 150kB ROM
  
• ARM9: (Fixed-point version) 44 MIPS, 33 k RAM, 176kB ROM
  
• Jacinto: (DSP version) 48 Mc/s, 42 k RAM, 177kB ROM