DSP Concepts announces Far Field Microphone Array Prototyping Kit for MEMS microphone and IoT developers
DSP Concepts, a developer of embedded audio DSP solutions, announced availability of its Far Field Microphone Array Prototyping Kit, targeted toward MEMS microphone vendors and IoT developers. The kit makes it easy for developers to improve microphone and voice recognition performance with echo cancelling, filtering, wind noise suppression, dynamics processing and other functions, all implemented through the graphical user interface environment of DSP Concepts’ Audio Weaver® modular programming software.
New kit makes it easy for developers to create microphone arrays for voice-command and IoT products
The kit works with any microphone array, and no knowledge of DSP programming is required to use the kit. Kit components include:
? A special version of DSP Concepts’ Audio Weaver modular DSP programming software, optimized for microphone array processing
? A TI TMDSEVM6657LS evaluation board
? Audio Weaver’s Embedded Run-Time Core optimized for the TI C6657 DSP
The kit is available through a licensing arrangement with DSP Concepts. The first licensee is Vesper, developer of the first piezoelectric MEMS microphones.
“The potential for low-power far field applications — such as voice interface in smart speakers and TVs and directional audio recording in smartphones — is within the consumer’s grasp, but implementation remains a problem,” said Matt Crowley, CEO, Vesper. “That’s because beamforming arrays require very stable MEMS microphones in order to function properly. DSP Concepts’ embedded audio algorithms can shorten development times for OEMs while delighting customers with a robust voice interface experience even in noisy and outdoor environments.”
“Microphone vendors and IoT designers need a proven, effective platform to evaluate microphone arrays in order to enable the best configurations for their application needs,” said Dr. Paul Beckmann, Founder and CEO of DSP Concepts. “With this kit, audio professionals can create microphone algorithms, such as echo cancellers and other key pre-processing algorithms, to enable features such as acoustic event detection or voice recognition.”
“DSP Concepts’ Far Field Microphone Array Prototyping Kit provides a microphone demonstration and evaluation platform that lets Vesper’s OEM customers implement advanced audio features such as ultra-low power wake-on-sound keyword detection,” added Crowley. “One of the most attractive features of Audio Weaver is that it supports all of the major CPU and DSP architectures so the algorithms will work across a wide variety of platforms, allowing our customers to leverage their investment in algorithms across their entire product portfolio.”
Yole Développement Technology and Market Analyst Guillaume Girardin commented, “With the mobile device market contracting, microphone manufacturers are eager to expand into automotive, IoT, smart home and smart building applications. Yole Développement forecasts great opportunities in the non-mobile MEMS microphone market reaching potentially 1 billion units by 2020 [1].”
DSP Concepts developed the Far Field Microphone Array Prototyping Kit in response to rapid growth of microphone usage in non-mobile applications. Manufacturers seek to capitalize on the popularity of voice-command products such as the Amazon Echo and Dot, and new entries such as Google Home. Achieving maximum voice recognition accuracy in voice command products requires sophisticated front-end microphone processing. Otherwise, extraneous noise will pollute the voice signal and create errors in voice recognition.
Source: https://www.pwc.com/us