This August, GN Netcom launched its Jabra BT530 mobile headset, which features not one, but 2 microphones. The Technology Research department, headed up by Chief Technology Officer Leo Larsen, helped develop the product. Larsen says:
“Using 2 microphones increases the ability of the device to remove background noise from speech before transmitting it through the telephone system. This is becoming increasingly necessary due to the typical demand for smaller and smaller products, which means that the microphone is no longer positioned directly in front of your mouth, as it is with proper handsets or headsets used in call centers, for example.”
Larsen believes that the increased mobility wireless products offer is one reason why the use of headsets has become much more differentiated. No longer relegated to the office, the devices are now also used in noisier environments such as in cars, streets, trains and restaurants.
More Microphones, Less Noise
The problems that noisy environments bring and the resulting need to reduce noise is very much an area that Larsen and his Technology Research team have been focusing on:
“Much of our work is focused on digital signal processing; for several years we have been concentrating on areas such as noise reduction, echo control, automatic volume control and protection. About 3 years ago, after having spent some years working on noise reduction with one microphone, we began exploring the possibilities of increasing noise reduction using more microphones,” explains Larsen.
Hearing aids are now also fitted with 2 or 3 microphones, and these solutions served as inspiration when GN Netcom developed a dual microphone headset.
“Our role in Technology Research is to demonstrate the effects of using the two microphones, and to demonstrate using algorithms that it is possible to implement the performance demonstrated on the platform available for our products,” says Larsen.
The new solution and implementation then become part of GN Netcom’s general platform: they are now part of the package that product managers and others responsible for the company’s product roadmap pick from when deciding which products should have which features.
Technology Research in Brief
The GN Netcom Technology Research department primarily tests audio (sound) technologies and options for products that are two to five years in the future. Examples of the questions they are trying to answer are:
- How do wireless technologies affect or work together with audio?
- How is audio tested and measured?
- How can you optimize audio, for example, together with the chip you are working on?
In addition to digital signal processing, Technology Research also works extensively with measuring techniques (acoustic) and testing under applicable standards, also as part of certification procedures in connection with CE labelling, accreditation by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications (DECT) and Bluetooth certifications.