"The Amazon AVS qualification of the far-field development kit means that consumer electronic OEM product managers, engineers and developers can test and validate their voice-enabled products using an advanced voice solution to mitigate risk, reduce development costs, and accelerate their time-to-market with confidence,” says Eric Bauswell, CEO of ArkX Laboratories. “By effectively overcoming background and barge-in noise, we believe we have a far superior product that gives them the option to go beyond what is currently available in the marketplace.”
The EveryWord Development Kit comes with a full Amazon AVS voice stack pre-installed and exceeds all Alexa Qualification Tool and Reference Solution far-field test requirements in both 2 mic and 4 mic configurations. Using the company's proprietary 3D audio processing technology to improve its beamforming capabilities, its supports full-duplex far-field voice communication, allows concurrent voice service and voice communication, and does not require source ducking for reliable interaction.
The advanced far-field technology increases the accuracy and reliability of “Alexa” wake-word triggering and command recognition at far-field distances and in noisy environments; it comes preloaded with Amazon Pryon Lite Wake-Word-Engine and accepts Sensory Wake-Word engine. Additionally, it supports 8+ meters far-field operation with 2, 3, or 4 microphones and arbitrary mic array geometries, including circular, square, triangular, linear, or 3D.
The AEC is scalable to mono, stereo, 3-channel, and 5-channel (surround movie or music) use cases. The unit supports far-field voice call mode and in-call voice triggering and is also suitable for wall-powered devices or portable battery-operated products with low milliwatt consumption. Other features include AVS compliant LED indicators and mic-mute button, Google Voice compliant mic spacing, an expansion bus for connecting GPIOs, I2S/TDM, SPI, I2C, and PDM mics and web-based firmware control console for simplified interactive operation, mic array selection, acoustic tuning, and diagnostics.
"Our EveryWord portfolio solves the biggest problems facing innovative OEMs today including, capturing voice in the presence of blaring TV and other noisy and reverberative environments without having to lower playback volume. It also works well around corners and can be placed anywhere, including a wall, ceiling, STBs, even lighting and other electrical fixtures,” says Scott McNeese, Director of Voice & Audio, ArkX Laboratories.
"Unlike conventional solutions that only hear in the X-Y plane, EveryWord hears, captures, and suppresses in all three X-Y-Z dimensions even with only 2 to 4 mics in one plane. This advanced performance delivers soft talk at half the nominal speech loudness, assuring an even better end-user experience," McNeese adds.
The EveryWord Ultra Far-Field Reference Design Kit can be purchased at www.arkxlabsshop.com. The platform is also suitable for use with all major voice assistants including Google, Siri, Cortana, Bixby, Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent.
Ark Electronics USA and Surfaceink embarked on a joint venture to deliver a better voice experience to the marketplace. The ArkX next generation of advanced performance far-field voice capture solutions, powered by Cirrus Logic and NXP technology, are Amazon qualified and ready to go. ArkX Laboratories is led by executives from both companies to run day-to-day operations and sales. The company’s offices are located in San Jose and Irvine, CA, USA, as well as Qingdao, China.
www.arkxlabs.com
