Avnet and Aaware Introduce Sound Capture Platform
Avnet, a technology distributor, and Aaware, a supplier of sound capture technology for far-field, voice-enabled digital products, have introduced Aaware's Sound Capture Platform, which leverages Avnet's MiniZed Zynq SoC development platform to improve sound capture performance for artificial intelligence (AI) applications in the smart home, industrial IoT, and robotics markets.
Aaware's Acoustically Aware sound capture algorithms, paired with TrulyHandsfree wake word detection technology from Sensory, allow systems to adapt to noise interference without requiring calibration or integration of the reference signal.
"By integrating Sensory's industry-leading wake word detection with Aaware's noise processing, device makers are able to deploy powerful products that feature always-listening speech recognition capabilities that thrive in noisy environments," said Bill Teasley, vice president of engineering at Sensory, in a statement.
The Aaware platform has a concentric circular array of 13 configurable microphones, allowing for product performance tuning. The Aaware platform separates source speech (wake word) and follow-on speech from interfering noise with ultra-low distortion, allowing the system to integrate with third-party speech and natural language engines. In addition, source localization data can be forwarded to downstream applications, such as video.
"Leveraging the utility and expandability of Avnet's MiniZed platform, Aaware's Acoustically Aware sound capture algorithms enable product development teams to create far-field voice-to-machine communications functionality that is more natural and robust than anything I have seen on the market today," said Jim Beneke, vice president of engineering and technology at Avnet, in a statement. "This versatile technology not only solves the problem of canceling noise, echo, and reverb that often confuse many popular cloud-based digital assistants and robotics applications, but the ability to recognize more than one wake word/phrase is a true differentiator."
"Avnet is a top-notch distributor that has cultivated an exceptionally collaborative relationship with Xilinx, whose technology is consistently at the core of next-generation applications and solutions," said Joe Gianelli, CEO and co-founder of Aaware, in a statement. "Working with Avnet, and by extension Xilinx, will enable Aaware to reach a greater array of customers and markets worldwide, delivering world-class audio sound capture solutions that can help them bring more robust AI applications to market quickly and effectively."
"Providing customers with scale and flexibility, coupled with powerful edge acceleration for the voice-enabled artificial intelligence application market, is compelling," said Yousef Khalilollahi, vice president of core vertical markets at Xilinx, in a statement. "We see tremendous opportunity accelerating at the edge with Xilinx All Programmable SoCs and Aaware technology, enabling voice assistants, robotics, and other AI-related applications."