Audio Bus Fault Detection and Backup Switching in Vehicles
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Solution Overview
Problem
Autonomous vehicles experience audio loss during calls when the primary audio bus fails, leading to potential delays and passenger unease due to the manual and error-prone process of switching to a backup system.
Innovation Solution
A Telemetrics and Networking Gateway (TANG) system on a chip is used to monitor the audio bus for faults and automatically switch calls to a backup microphone and speaker not connected through the audio bus, ensuring seamless communication by detecting faults in frames and superframes.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a manual switching process is used when audio bus fails, then the system can switch to backup, but the process is error-prone and causes delays
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs self-diagnosis and self-switching when audio bus failure is detected. The bus managing module automatically monitors the audio bus, detects faults, and switches to backup microphones/speakers without requiring manual intervention, making the system serve itself during failure conditions
Solution Approach 2:
The system continuously monitors the audio bus for faults and uses this feedback to automatically trigger the switching process. The bus managing module receives status information from the audio bus and adjusts the audio path accordingly, creating a closed-loop control system that responds to bus conditions
2Reliability
If automated fault detection and switching is implemented, then communication continuity is maintained, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
Backup microphones and speakers are pre-configured and ready before failure occurs. The system prepares alternative audio paths in advance, so when a fault is detected, the switching can occur immediately without needing to set up backup components during the failure event
Solution Approach 2:
The bus managing module acts as an intermediary that coordinates between the audio bus, microphones, speakers, and cellular module. It monitors the audio bus and manages the switching process, centralizing control logic to handle complexity in a dedicated component rather than分散 across multiple components
Data Source
AI summary
Systems and methods for preventing loss of audio during calls to and from a vehicle. In particular, systems and methods are provided for preventing the loss of audio for calls during an audio bus failure. Vehicles include interior microphones and speakers, which are connected via an audio bus. In some examples, the audio bus also includes other components such as a mixer, a transceiver, one or more cellular modems, an audio input module, and a digital signal processor. Using the audio bus, microphone input is beamformed and mixed and transmitted over a cellular network to a call recipient. Sound received back from the call recipient is received at the audio bus and transmitted to the vehicle via one or more speakers coupled to the audio bus. In some instances, the audio bus can fail, and alternative call procedures can be used to contact a remote advisor or other call recipient.