The Fraunhofer upHear Voice Quality Enhancement (VQE) technology is now available for the NXP i.MX8 platforms. The fully integrated technology processes microphone signals to enable far-field full-duplex conversations in the full perceptible audio bandwidth for conferencing solutions with consistently outstanding audio quality, as well as natural language understanding in smart assistant devices. Already in use in multiple devices on the market, the technology allows comprehension of far-field voice commands and enables barge-in by removing interfering sounds captured by the device’s microphones, extracting the user’s voice, and canceling out acoustic echoes that would otherwise prevent the Human-Machine Interface (HMI) from understanding the user’s request. This is achieved by optimally combining advanced multi‑channel acoustic echo cancellation, source localization, noise reduction, dereverberation, automatic gain control, and beamforming methods.

upHear VQE’s flexibility means it can be applied with a wide range of smart assistant devices, such as smart speakers, soundbars, cameras, TVs, and industrial devices. It offers flexibility in both the microphone and loudspeaker configuration of the device, ensuring optimal performance regardless of whether mono, stereo, surround, or immersive sound is being played back. This allows for flexible product design while ensuring optimal performance.