This video appeared in Electronic Design and has been published here with permission.
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One might think that noise-cancelling motorcycle helmets could reduce situational awareness, but that's not necessarily the case. In this instance, noise-cancellation technology can eliminate regular noise like road noise due to wind and tires while allowing irregular noise, such as a passing car, come through. Simply blocking out all noise would diminish situational awareness.
Environmental noise cancellation (ENC) and active noise cancellation (ANC) can be used to improve a driver's environment and make it easier to listen to music, have a hands-free telephone call, and, in a future that has now arrived, hear audio that's part of an augmented-reality head-up display (HUD). Synaptics was showing just this type of environment at CES (see figure).
Synaptics employs technology like its AudioSmart AS33970 headset platform. The platform utilizes artificial-intelligence/machine-learning (AI/ML) models to enable ENC and hybrid ANC support. The system-on-chip (SoC) incorporates the company's neural processing unit (NPU) to handle deep-neural-network (DNN) models for audio processing. The low-power SoC targets applications like wireless headsets.