Wrap-up Session
Conclusions for Session 5
Session 5: Voice and audiovisual services
Review of the ongoing standardization activities and
technical issues and solutions to provide good (better)
quality to the users
Jean-Yves Monfort
ITU-T FG CARCOM Vice-Chair,
ETSI TC STQ Chair
France Telecom Representative
JYM.C.I.S
International
The Fully Networked Car
Geneva, 4-5 March 2009
Telecommunication
Union
Highlights from Presentation 5.1
“Speech communication in cars goes wideband- a
new ITU-T FG CARCOM”
(Hans.W. Gierlich, Head Acoustics GmbH)
Going to wideband creates new challenges
Delay
To provide superior noise cancellation
To provide superior echo cancellor
Quality in double talk
So, need to define criteria ensuring superior conversation
performance
Need for collaborations between standardization bodies to
ensure a global quality through different networks and
terminals
Reach the goal of "Tandem Free Operation" (including all
speech processing systems of the communication chain)
Develop/Implement protocols to avoid or at least reduce
speech processing tandeming.
Anyone may join ITU-T FG Carcom
Next meeting: March 6th, 2009, Geneva
The Fully Networked Car
Geneva, 4-5 March 2009
International
Telecommunication
Union
Highlights from Presentation 5.2
“Car Active Noise Cancellation for improved car
efficiency, From/In/To car voice communication
and music listening experience” (J.P. Jallet, NXP
semiconductors)
Car Active Noise Cancellation is able to
reduce the low frequency car engine and road
noise without car weight increase (by
comparison with passive countermeasures).
Car Active Noise Cancellation brings
additional benefits:
Car audio listening experience: de-masking of the music
bass to restores a listening experience close to the one
obtained in quiet/low noise environment.
Car hands-free voice communication: additional low
frequency noise reduction on top of sending path noise
reduction.
Car Active Noise Cancellation can ideally be
integrated with the car audio and car handsfree voice communication systems.
The Fully Networked Car
Geneva, 4-5 March 2009
International
Telecommunication
Union
Highlights from Presentation 5.3
“Wideband Speech Communications : The good, The
Bad and the Ugly”
(Scott Pennock, QNX Software Systems)
The presentation shows the real benefits
of Wideband speech in car, by comparison
with Narrowband.
WB may also become a key differentiator.
But, to succeed it is needed to
Design fine vehicle platforms
implement high performance speech
enhancement systems (AEC, NR,…)
Ensure fine interoperability between narrow
and wideband speech
International
The Fully Networked Car
Geneva, 4-5 March 2009
Telecommunication
Union
Highlights from Presentation 5.4
“Automotive speech Enhancement of Today :
applications, challenges and Solutions” (Tim
Haulick, Harmann/Becker Automotive Systems GmbH)
Presents several implementations to enhance speech quality
perceived by the users (inside the car and distant users) in
driving situations
Bandwidth extension (from NBWB)
Speech reconstruction (reducing noise masking)
Association of beamformer and spatial postfilter (to
improve speech recognition without significant
impairement of speech quality)
Wind noise suppression (to reduce noise generated by
fans)
In-car communications (subjective tests showing the
improvement perceived by users)
The enhancements are presented through spectrograms,
auditory samples an results of subjective tests
The Fully Networked Car
Geneva, 4-5 March 2009
International
Telecommunication
Union
Highlights from Presentation 5.5
“Innovative Strategies to Improve the Delivery of
Telematics Voice Services” (Julien Masson,
Connexis)
Presents a new approach for
communications between drives and call
centers
By combining speech recognition with human
agents
By distributed call centers with work-at-home
agents
Shows consequences of this approach on
The reduction of the time requesting the driver
attention
The reduction of the cost associated to the
service
International
The Fully Networked Car
Geneva, 4-5 March 2009
Telecommunication
Union
Remarks
The first ITU-T Focus Group FITCAR produced a
specification now approved as ITU-T as P.1100,
for Handsfree terminals in narrow-band speech.
The new ITU-T Focus Group CARCOM is dedicated
to Wideband speech (100Hz-7 kHz). Results
expected by October 2009.
Moving from Narrow-band (NB) to Wideband
(WB) is not only to increase the bandwidth but to
ensure real better quality for the users, which
include improvements in the whole
communication chain including terminals.
Specific enhancements are needed for car
environments, but these enhancements may also
be needed for other situations. So, some
specifications could be re-used in standards.
The Fully Networked Car
Geneva, 4-5 March 2009
International
Telecommunication
Union
Conclusions / Recommendations (1/2)
FG CARCOM is a fine place to define
requirements and test methods for terminals
implementing speech signal processing to be
used in noisy or adverse acoustic environments
(eg Noise cancellation)  New Recommendation
in ITU-T SG12
Some results could also be useful for other types of
terminals  need to disseminate results to other
Standardization Bodies (eg ETSI STQ, 3GPP SA4)
The on-going work in SG16 on Voice
enhancement (see session 3) will be very useful,
specially for car communications to avoid/reduce
speech processing tandeming and to provide
relevant protocols to be used by networks and
terminals.
The Fully Networked Car
Geneva, 4-5 March 2009
International
Telecommunication
Union
Conclusions / Recommendations (2/2)
On-going wideband deployement but wideBand
speech applications shall provide real superior
speech quality, in order to satisfy users'
expectations.
Importance to develop standards ensuring fine
interoperability between Narrowband and
Wideband, without reducing significantly the
speech quality in Wideband (eg implementation
of bandwidth extension applications).
Speech recognition. Few standards in this field;
however, is there a need to develop specifications
on acoustical interfaces and noise cancellation, to
improve the performance of speech recognition?
The Fully Networked Car
Geneva, 4-5 March 2009
International
Telecommunication
Union