Conversations in a vehicle can be eased significantly by an in-car communication system. Talking passengers are recorded by microphones, the speech-signals are enhanced, amplified and played back over loudspeakers to help the listeners.

Our in-car communication system features:

• Improved conversations with natural speech quality
  • High playback volume due to superior feedback control
  • Reduction of disturbances and driving noise
  • Spatial speaker localization is preserved
• Support for different car models (sedans, vans, convertibles)
• Arbitrary configuration of
  • Seats (talking/listening zones)
  • Microphones and loudspeakers
• Scalability in terms of algorithmic complexity
• Easy configuration and system setup

Our intercom system is the software solution for speech or audio requirements in your individual product – tailored to your needs.

An example of intercom in the operating room

In the operating room hitch-free communication is vitally important. However, there are numerous electrical devices that produce noise or behave as obstacles in the speech paths.

Our intercom system improves this situation by combining microphones, loudspeakers, and optimized algorithms to distribute speech and therefore provides the foundation for more efficient surgeries. The system can be integrated into medical devices or into the furnishing of the operating room.

More use cases of intercom

Intercom is not restricted to medical environments. Generally, it simplifies speech communication in all environments that suffer from high-level background noise or moderately large distances between the interlocutors. Intercom addresses all these challenges and ensures hassle-free communication in environments, such as PA systems, conference rooms, audio/video chat, etc.

Our handsfree system currently comes in flavours optimized for cars, conferencing rooms, and heavy machines (agricultural and construction vehicles). It combines our core algorithms to deliver the best performance under your boundary conditions such as bandwidth, delay or resource restrictions.

Our goal is to integrate seamlessly into existing applications and exploit algorithmic synergies whenever possible. As an example, our in-car communication system features an integrated hands-free system with a combined feedback and echo canceller. This saves algorithmic complexity (no duplication of functionality) and even improves the cancellation performance in both applications.

A selection of featured sub-algorithms:

• Echo cancellation, residual echo suppression
• Noise reduction
• Beamforming (fixed and adaptive)
• Automatic gain control

Light-weight sonar systems often produce noisy data. Other acoustic devices may emit interfering sounds, resulting in artifacts within the sonar image.

Our tools enable:

• Suppression of noise
• Statistical artifact reduction
• Cancellation of interfering devices using reference sensors
• Image sharpening to simulate superdirective beamforming

Together with GEOMAR, we have implemented the SIDESCANTOOLS software suite. It is available under GPLv3 at GitHub .

The software suite mainly implements the following processing steps:

• Preprocessing
• Bottom-line detection
• Slant-range correction
• Empirical gain normalization
• Georeferencing / GIS