SAI Spotlight: Silentium
As we and the world of Audio spring forward into March, let’s jump into something new for the SAI Blog. In this edition — the first in a recurring series, we’re hoping — we will focus on one of Shively Acoustics International’s (SAI) various relationships, highlighting an important past project, for example, to illustrate how our myriad areas of expertise can be put to use. To kick off the series, let’s take a look at SAI’s ongoing and vigorous collaboration with automotive software supplier Silentium (Tel Aviv, Israel; www.silentium.com).
SAI and Silentium
Today, Silentium counts as one of SAI’s most important and established partners. While the relationship has kicked into higher gear within the last four years or so, its foundation was laid more than a decade ago.
Back in 2013, Roger traveled to Tel Aviv for a meeting with Silentium’s Yoel Naor and Tzvika Friedman — at the time members of the company’s engineering team — to get a look at the Israeli company’s work on active noise control headphones. To say the least, both sides were impressed with one another, and although nothing came of that initial meeting, a seed had been planted.🌱
Yoel (left) and Roger in August 2022 at the Silentium head office in Tel Aviv (Photo: Silentium)
In the years that followed, Roger and Silentium kept in touch, with trust continuing to build. By the time CES 2018 rolled around, Yoel and Tzvika were in their current positions as CEO and CTO of Silentium, respectively, while the company had also settled on automotive applications, in particular active road noise cancellation (ARNC). At the trade show in Las Vegas, which readers will remember from our January blog post is a key event for SAI, Roger attended their tech demos, and used the opportunity for an informal sit-down in the lobby to discuss possible points of collaboration in Automotive. And so that seed continued to grow.
Three years later, it began to bear fruit. In 2021, remembering their meeting from 2018, Yoel reached out to Roger for help with an ARNC project, specifically the software development for an automotive smart sensor module. This is one of the sensory devices placed throughout a vehicle to pick up on vibrations (i.e. noise) and convert these into electric signals that relay information on the noise levels, which can then be adjusted accordingly.
Silentium had already written the necessary algorithm to make such adjustments, but were looking for support on a solution to getting it communicated across the car’s network (in this case, Analog Device’s A²B™ Audio Bus) via software from a central hardware unit (the Silentium Controller) out to the various sensors.
Enter SAI. The project initially comprised two stages. Roger and his team first provided proof of concept, writing the software in isolation on a dev board. Sure thing, no sweat — we got it to work; but this turned out to be the easy part. What was intended to be the second and final stage — integrating the software into the Controller — was the beginning of a new challenge.
The third-party prototype hardware had some issues. Roger found that, as-is, it could not be ensured that proper network communication would occur as needed without fail. This required us to modify the Controller ourselves, and here Roger’s years of past experience with hardware-software integration at Harman International came in handy. With that done, a third stage required a final rewrite of the software for the final product, so that it worked smoothly with the improved hardware.
A particular challenge during the project was effectively integrating the software into the Silentium Controller hardware unit (Image: Silentium)
At risk of stating the obvious, the project was a success, and as such SAI contributed to a crucial part of Silentium’s business. Throughout the undertaking, the need for SAI’s expertise became more and more apparent, and it was evident that the collaboration between our companies could and should extend far beyond the project itself.
By the time it had reached its final completion in 2022, a true partnership was already well underway, one that is still growing. In particular, Silentium sees great value in SAI’s capacity for product development and improvement, in addition to automotive solutions themselves. Most importantly, Roger and SAI have been asked to lead the regional effort in expanding Silentium’s presence on the North American market. The future couldn’t be brighter for SAI and Silentium.
That wraps up our first SAI Spotlight. Future iterations are planned, so stay tuned! Until then, you can check out our Solutions page to get a better idea of who we’ve worked with in the past. Is there a particular project you'd be interested in seeing in the Spotlight? Let us know in the Comments below!
Odds and ends
As always, we’ll leave you with a few quick reminders. First and foremost, we are now one month closer (ahhh! 😲) to the 2024 AES 5th International Conference on Automotive Audio, to be held from June 26-28 in Gothenburg, Sweden. Although the deadline for workshop submissions has just passed, we are still accepting peer-reviewed paper submissions for another month. Hurry up before it’s too late and submit by April 17! Also, if you haven’t already, check out our promotional videos in last month’s blog post for more information on this year’s conference.
SUBMISSION DEADLINE
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Papers: April 17
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SUBMISSION DEADLINE 〰️ Papers: April 17 〰️
But much sooner than that, Roger and SAI will be attending the SAE World Congress Experience (WCX) in Detroit, Michigan, from April 16-18. We’ll be exploring and reporting on new technologies, while also reconnecting with the Automotive OEMs in the Detroit area and continuing business development for both SAI and Silentium.
A bit further out, and just before the AES Automotive Audio conference, is AES Europe 2024, the Audio Engineering Society’s annual European convention, to be held in Madrid, Spain, from June 15-17. Come whet your appetites in Madrid before we see you in Gothenburg!
That’s all for now. Keep riding those audio waves, sound surfers! ■
Shively Acoustics International — Modern Audio Solutions, Worldwide
