In-Car Communication

   
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Since conversational partners in a vehicle do not face each other directly, there is a relatively high attenuation of the speech signal and the signal-to-noise ratio at the listener’s ears is additionally decreased by driving noise. The approach of an in-car communication (ICC) system to resolve this problem is to record the talker’s speech by means of microphones and play it back over loudspeakers which are located close to the listening passengers. Because the listener always perceives a mixture of direct sound and the loudspeaker signal, the system has to be designed to operate with only a small delay of less than 15 ms. Also, such a system operates in a closed electroacoustic loop and thus, system stability becomes a critical issue.

Currently our research is focused on signal processing methods that are required for such kind of systems:

  • beamforming,

  • noise reduction,

  • echo and feedback cancellation, and

  • equalization.

In order to be able to test our algorithms we have several possibilities:

  • While development we have our own real-time simulation of passenger compartments. This is a pure software approach that is included in our real-time toolkit "KiRAT".

  • Furthermore, we have a hardware-based simulation of passenger compartments, meaning that we can test head-units that are equipped with in-car communication systems. The head-unit will "see" 8 Ohm loudspeaker outputs and will get typical VDA microphone signals.

  • For real-time tests in cars we have two research cars available: a mini van and a convertible. Furthermore, we have access to a small bus in order to test new versions of our systems.

  • Since the street, the weather, the traffic, etc. of today is different from yesterdays counterpart we have also an acoustic environmental simulation system that is using a variety of loudspeakers and projectors to create a realistic and reproducible audio and video impressions of a priori recorded setups.

 

Corresponding Publications

   

M. Gimm, F. Kühne, G. Schmidt: A Multichannel Spatial Hands-Free Application for In-Car Communication Systems, in H. Abut, G. Schmidt, K. Takeda, J. Lambert and J. Hansen (eds.), Towards Human-Vehicle Harmonization, de Gruyter, 2023.

     

T. Hübschen, M. Gimm, G. Schmidt: A Background Noise and Impulse Response Corpus for Research in Automotive Speech and Audio Processing, Proc. DAGA, Germany, 2022

   

K. Linhard, P. Bulling, M. Gimm, G. Schmidt: Robust and High Gain Acoustic Feedback Compensation in the Frequency Domain With a Simple Energy-decay Operator, Proceedings of the 14th ITG Conference on Speech Communication, September 2021

   

M. Gimm, P. Bulling, G. Schmidt: Residual Feedback Suppression with Extended Model-based Postfilters, EURASIP Journal on Audio, Speech, and Music Processing, 2021:21, DOI: doi.org/10.1186/s13636-021-00205-8, 2021

   

M. Gimm, A. Namenas, G. Schmidt: Combination of Hands-Free and ICC Systems, in H.Abut, J. H. L. Hansen, G. Schmidt and K. Takeda (eds.), Intelligent Vehicles and Transportation, de Gruyter, 2020.

   

M. Gimm, A. Namenas G. Schmidt: Combination of Hands-Free and ICC-Systems, The 8th Biennial Workshop on DSP for In-Vehicle and Mobile Systems, 2018

   

P. Bulling, K. Linhard, A. Wolf, G. Schmidt: Automatic Equalization for In-Car Communication Systems, Conference on Electronic Speech Signal Processing, 2018, Ulm, Germany (online access)

   

M. Gimm, P. Bulling, G. Schmidt: Energy-Decay based Postfilter for ICC Systems with Feddback Cancellation, Conference on Electronic Speech Signal Processing, 2018, Ulm, Germany (online access)

   

R. Al-Mafrachi, M. Gimm, G. Schmidt: Estimation of the Head Orientation for In-Car Communication Systems, DAGA 2018

   

C. Lüke, A. Theiss, G. Schmidt, R. Landgraf, T. John, O, Niebuhr: How to Create a Clean Lombard Speech Database Using Loudspeakers, in H. Abut, J. Hansen, G. Schmidt, K. Takeda, H. Ko (eds.), Vehicle Systems and Driver Modelling, de Gruyter, September 2017.

   

P. Bulling, K. Linhard, A. Wolf, G. Schmidt: Stepsize Control for Acoustic Feedback Cancellation Based on the Detection of Reverberant Signal Periods and the Estimated System Distance, Proc. Interspeech, pp. 176 - 180, 2017

   

P. Bulling, K. Linhard, A. Wolf, and G. Schmidt: Approximation of the Optimum Stepsize for Acoustic Feedback Cancellation Based on the Detection of Reverberant Signal Periods, Proc. DAGA, Kiel, Germany, open access, 2017

   

P. Bulling, K. Linhard, A. Wolf, G. Schmidt: Acoustic Feedback Compensation with Reverb-based Stepsize Control for In-car Communication Systems, ITG Speech, October 2016

   

R. Landgraf, J. Köhler-Kaeß, C. Lüke, O. Niebuhr, G. Schmidt: Can You Hear Me Now? Reducing the Lombard Effect in a Driving Car Using an In-Car Communication System, Proc. Speech Prosody, pp. 479 - 483, 2016

   

C. Lüke, A. Wolf, M. Brodersen, G. Schmidt: Digitale Simulation der Fahrzeuginnenraumakustik zur Unterstützung der Entwicklung und Evaluierung von Innenraum-Kommunikationssystemen, DAGA 2015, Nürnberg, Germany

   

T. John, R. Landgraf, C. Lüke, S. Rohde, G. Schmidt, A. Theiß, J. Withopf: Über die Verbesserung der Sprachkommunikation in geräuschbehafteten Umgebungen, in O. Niebuhr (ed.): Formen des Nichtverstehens, Peter Lang, December 2014 (in German)

   

J. Withopf, S. Rohde, G. Schmidt: Application of Frequency Shifting in In-Car Communication Systems, Proc. ITG Fachtagung Sprachkommunikation 2014, Erlangen, Germany

   

A. Theiß, G. Schmidt, J. Withopf, C. Lüke: Instrumental Evaluation of In-Car Communication Systems, Proc. ITG Fachtagung Sprachkommunikation 2014, Erlangen, Germany

   

J. Withopf, G. Schmidt: Estimation of Time-variant Acoustic Feedback Paths in In-Car Communication Systems, Proc. International Workshop on Acoustic Signal Enhancement IWAENC 2014, Antibes, France

   

A. Theiß, G. Schmidt: Investigation of Self-Masking Effects for the Evaluation of In-Car Communication Systems, Proc. International Workshop on Acoustic Signal Enhancement IWAENC 2014, Antibes, France

   

C. Lüke, G. Schmidt, A. Theiß, J. Withopf: In-Car Communication, in G. Schmidt, H. Abut, K. Takeda, J. Hansen (eds.), Smart Mobile In-Vehicle Systems, Springer, January 2014

   

G. Schmidt, A. Theiß, J. Withopf, A. Wolf: Evaluation of In-Car Communication Systems, in J. Hansen, P. Boyraz, K. Takeda, H. Abut (eds.), Digital Signal Processing for In-Vehicle Systems and Safety, Springer, January 2012

   

J. Withopf, G. Schmidt: Suppression of Instationary Distortions in Automotive Environments, ITG 2012, Braunschweig, Germany, 2012

   

J. Withopf, L. Jassoume, G. Schmidt, A. Theiß: A Modified Overlap-Add Filter Bank With Reduced Delay, DAGA 2012, Darmstadt, Germany, 2012

   

C. Lüke, J. Bajorat, G. Schmidt, Real-Time Implementation of an Adaptive Beamformer-Postfilter System, DAGA 2012, Darmstadt, Germany, 2012

   

J. Withopf, C. Lüke, H. Özer, G. Schmidt, A. Theiß: Signal Processing for In-Car Communication Systems, DSP Workshop for In-Vehicle Systems 2011, Kiel, Germany, 2011