Wideband (50-7000 Hz) speech communications brings improvements over traditional narrowband (300-3400 Hz) communications: it can increase intelligibility, reduce driver distraction, enable spatial auditory displays, and more. Unfortunately, wideband communications also has some drawbacks. This paper reviews some of the main benefits, challenges and unresolved issues with wideband speech communications in an automotive environment.
Phil Hetherington is Director of R&D at QNX, where he is responsible for all research, development, and quality assurance activities relating to speech and automotive acoustics. Prior to joining QNX, he developed three software programs for the analysis of neural clusters (AUTOCUT), hippocampal place fields (PFA), and genetic arrays (GAE). He holds over 47 patents in acoustics processing, and is an accomplished author and presenter. Phil has a B.A. in Psychology from Brock University, and a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from McGill University.
Scott Pennock is Senior Hands-Free Standards Specialist at QNX. Before joining QNX, he was a Lead Acoustic Test Engineer at Apple, a Senior Systems Engineer at OnStar researching speech enhancement technologies, and a Speech Technologies Specialist at Lucent, also working on speech enhancment technologies. He holds a B.S. in Experimental/Cognitive Psychology from Michigan State University, and an Masters degree in Applied Psychology from the Stevens Institute of Technology.
07/01/10
Phil Hetherington
Scott Pennock