Smart Speakers: Audio Design Rules for Voice-Enabled Devices

Because every R&D department in the planet is currently looking at implementing voice, and everyone's looking at audioXpress for guidance on how to design a smart speaker, in this edition Kevin Connor, shares his insider knowledge on the topic. Connor, a Cirrus Logic engineer, explains how to provide audio and voice solutions, and design products that sound great and respond reliably to voice commands, regardless of backend service. This article was originally published in audioXpress, January 2018.

Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs, announced a breakthrough in speech separation technology at an annual R&D open house held in Tokyo. The research lab has created the world's first technology that separates in real time the simultaneous speech of multiple unknown speakers recorded with a single microphone. It’s a key step towards building machines that can interact in noisy environments, in the same way that humans can have meaningful conversations in the presence of many other conversations.

German company HEAD acoustics launched VoCAS (Voice Control Analysis System), an efficient software analysis solution for evaluating speech recognition systems. From voice control in vehicles to the use of speech commands for smartphones, tablets or telephone hotlines, VoCAS allows quick and objective quality evaluation, under realistic and repeatable test conditions, of Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) systems, found in an increasing number of applications today.