Software environment sounds good for pro audio

The MathWorks has added professional audio support capabilities to xPC Target, its rapid prototyping software environment for embedded systems design.

The MathWorks has added professional audio support capabilities to xPC Target, its rapid prototyping software environment for embedded systems design.

The new capabilities allow audio designers to acquire data from audio sources, process the data with their prototype algorithms, and output the modified data to audio sinks, all in real-time.

These enhancements enable engineers to accelerate the audio systems design process while improving the overall quality of their products.

By configuring xPC Target with the BittWare Audio-PMC+ audio I/O board, engineers can integrate BittWare's versatile audio I/O capability with the widely used Simulink and DSP Blockset system simulation tools, as well as xPC Target's rapid prototyping capabilities.

Code generated from Simulink models with Real-Time Workshop is executed in real-time using the xPC Target real-time kernel on a target PC system.

As a result, xPC Target has emerged as a leading tool for developing high-end audio processing algorithms using real-time rapid prototyping capabilities.

"The addition of audio support for xPC Target extends this product from its base in control system prototyping to the new domain of audio design prototyping.

This capability further enhances The MathWorks leadership position as a provider of essential tools for embedded systems designers with an end-to-end capability for audio design, simulation, and rapid prototyping", said Michael W Dickens, Technical Marketing Manager at The MathWorks.

"We expect the breadth of our model-based design offering, combined with this high performance, audio rapid prototyping system, will accelerate audio systems design and the completion of the final application".

"BittWare has provided leading-edge signal processing and real-time I/O boards for many years.

However, one persistent problem we hear from our customers is the need for better development and debug tools", said Jeff Milrod, President of BittWare.

"These tools from The MathWorks address those needs, which will lead to simplified and shortened development cycles for our customers".

Simulink is an interactive environment for modelling, analysing, and simulating dynamic systems, including digital, analogue, and hybrid systems.

The DSP Blockset adds fundamental DSP simulation capability to the Simulink environment, such as efficient processing of frame-based data, and DSP algorithms, such as filters, transforms, and windows.

Together, the DSP Blockset and Simulink can be used to develop efficient DSP applications and evaluate them within an end-to-end system simulation.

The advanced signal processing capabilities of DSP Blockset and Filter Design Toolbox can now be used both for simulation of new algorithms and for real-time prototyping of new designs.

This provides a powerful, cost-effective rapid prototyping capability for developing sophisticated audio processing algorithms, such as those found in noise cancellation, speech enhancement, and music synthesis applications.

BittWare's Audio-PMC+ is an audio I/O board that provides analogue and digital audio interfaces, two ADSP-21065L SHARC DSPs with embedded interface software, and a 64/66 PCI interface - all on a single PMC card.

An extremely versatile pro-audio board, the Audio-PMC+ offers many options for interfacing, clocking, and routing of audio data and includes interface software embedded in the DSPs.

(This was Electronicstalk's Top Story on 5 November 2002).

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