Howzon scientists are running success for Alexa in the car

“Alexa, where’s the closest coffee shop?”

In vehicles with Alexa, drivers can ask questions like that – while watching the road and hands of the steering wheel. Amazon’s cloud -based voice assistant technology collaborates with the car’s navigation system to find out where the nearest coffee shop is and guide drivers to it.

Alexa’s local voice control of native functions in the car, such as adjusting the air conditioner, setting the radio, opening the sunroof and turning on the reading light does not require a connection to the cloud.

Interactions such as this hinge about the ability of the built -in hardware and software to exactly detect when Alexa is invoked.

“We want to take the Alexa experience that customers are known and comfortable with at home and expand this experience to cars,” said Jinghao Liu, a main hardware engineer with Amazon Smart Vehicles at the team’s vehicle laboratory in San Jose, California.

The challenge is that cars are a different acoustic and operating environment than a home. They are noisy to begin with. In addition, most of the customer’s needs in a car rental -specific and tied to real -time road, traffic and weather conditions. And like most drivers know, cellular service in one because is never 100% reliable, especially outside cities and cities.

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Data sets that require questions about answering models to look up several facts and perform Compaison’s bridges a significant hole in the field.

There is another complication: Hardware. Amazon researchers often work with car manufacturers on the design and implementation of their systems, but during validation in the 6,000-square-foot vehicle laboratory there is an element they cannot control.

“We give our partners access to Alexa services and functionalities, but we are not doing the device,” explained parimal Tathavadekar, a senior manager at the Amazon Smart Vehicles team. “We make sure that the integration of our technology with their device is correct and happy to work.”

Handling of road noise

The biggest difference between talking to Alexa in a car versus at home is the increase in noise, Liu noted. Think of rumble from the deck on the road and turbalens from the wind, as well as whatever radio station, podcast or music play through the stereo system.

To invoke Alexa, the car’s microphones need to choose the speaker’s voice from this yours and send the voice signal to the automatic speech recognition model running in the cloud.

Inside the Amazon Vehicle Laboratory, engineers simile for vehicle sites, validation that Alexa is integrated with the car’s navigation system and is able to provide reporting information and experiences to customers on the go.

At design meetings, Amazon researchers collaborate with car manufacturers on techniques that allow the car’s built-in system to focus on the person who speaks to Alexa and cancel acoustic echo and background noise.

For example, Amazon scientists recommend that car manufacturers use a signaling procedure technique called beamforming that controls microphonarrays against a voice signal that comes from a particular source, such as the driver while suppressing audio interference from all other directions.

“You are laser focusing on just one angle,” Liu explained, adding that beamforming is used in the Amazon Echo family of devices.

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By combining psychoacoustics, signal treatment and speaker radiation improves stereo sounds and delivers an immersive sound experience for customers.

Another recommended technique called Acoustic Echo Annullering blocks the noise of the car’s speakers so that music played by the speaker does not interfere with the customer’s requests. Manufacturers can also implement different reduction algorithms that learn to separate a speaker’s voice from other background noise.

Inside the vehicle laboratory, Amazon scientists use software and acoustic tools to simulate road noise, music and other acoustic elements asy tests and validate Alexa integration with the car manufacturer’s built-in systems.

To obtain certification, the built-in system must stream a voiece signal to the automatic-speech recognition model, of a similar quality as the voice signals streamed from one of the other hundreds of millions of Alexa-Conneté devices worldwide.

“This model serves millions of devices at home and on the go, so we make sure that the received audio signal is fair and our cloud takes care of the rest,” Liu said.

Personal mobility

Customer interactions with Alexa in cars are often rent -specific, ranging from inquiries about interest points along the way to driving directions that avoid traffic jams.

Amazon does not have its own navigation system or a proprietary database with interest points, noticed Tathavadekar.

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Rather, Alexa AI is designed to solve a speaker’s inquiry and hand out such purposes for the car’s navigation engine for geolocation information. Alexa uses this data to interact with third -party databases for information on interest points.

The use of Alexa in connection with a cheap native navigation system allows drivers to perform tasks via voice instead of “having to write or touch various navigation screens that may be distraction,” Tathavadekar said.

The contextual consciousness also allows Alexa to shared experiences, such as tuning in local radio stations on a cross -country skirt.

Inside Amazon’s Vehicle Lab, engineers simile vehicle locations, Liu explained, validation that Alexa is integrated with the car navigation system and able to provide reporting information and experiences to customers on the go.

Remains connected

The quality of the connection is another factor in how quickly a device can connect to Alexa and get an answer.

“When driving, you have to go through a patch with poor reception,” Liu Arisad. Therefore, he and his colleagues also test how built -in systems handle scenarios with poor or no, cellular signal.

In today’s world, customers are used to get a quick response from Alexa at home, Liu noted. If the answer takes longer on the road, the customer may seem the defective defective. Therefore, Amazon ensures that Alexa remains connected to customers even when the cellular signal is lost.

For example, Alexa’s local voice control of native functions in the car, such as adjusting the air conditioner, adjusting the radio, opening the sunroof and turning on the reading light does not require a connection to the cloud.

In the vehicle laboratory, the team measures the built -in hardware unit’s latency with different levels of connection. If the cellular signal strength is strong, but Alexa is slow to respond, it may be an indication that hardware needs to be reinstated.

As the connection becomes ubiquitous, Liu added, the delay expectations will continue to tighten. Amazon researchers also expect that experiences within and outside of cars will become more engaging and complex in the future.

“Every year we have added new features and equipment to our test arsenal,” Liu said.

Do it in person

The Alexa experience in a car should also be like the interactions that customers have with Alexa in their home, Naked Tathavadekar. It’s possible because cars with built-in Alexa are just another end point for individual Alexa accounts stored in the cloud.

“We are able to give experience at all the final points where the person in question might work,” he said. “You might create a playlist at home and play it in your car.”

Similarly, a driver in their car Alexa can add a item to a shopping list that they started in the kitchen or ask Alexa to lock the front door to a connected smart home.

Giving the personal and well -known experience with Alexa in cars requires a system that seamlessly expands the Alexa experience from an echo at home to a vehicle that may be traveling down a cone -sized highway with uneven connection.

“The big part of our work is to collaborate with the Major because the producers to create unique experiences that pleased car owners,” said Liu. “They are our partners who help deliver the product to the customers. They make the car and we add this piece of personal voice assistant to the digital experience.”

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