What's precisely in the Pad, the Phebe's Vocal Device ?

As you may know, “the Pad” is a vocal device dedicated to Phebe. It is used to bring the Phebe Experience to any vehicle, whatever the model and the equipment of this vehicle. The Pad brings artificial intelligence into the car while connecting it to all the services included in the Phebe ecosystem.

Believe it or not, preferring an “after-market  device” approach to a “mobile app” approach is not just motivated by our taste for difficulty 😉  In a future post we will detail all the reasons why we have made this choice. To understand these reasons better, one must first know the incredible features that are already available in a Phebe Pad. This device is designed to be completely autonomous in order to guarantee the availability of all the functions needed to create the best services ever.

HARDWARE :

• ARM Cortex-A9 micro-processor (Samsung S5P4418) at 1.4 GHz.
• Network  of microphones : with a dedicated Voice Processor to handle beam-forming, echo cancellation, hotword detection…
• Loudspeaker with a 3W Class D amplifier.
• Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) : including accelerometers, gyroscopes and a magnetometer.
• Global Positioning System device (GPS).
• 3G/4G modem for telecoms.
• BlueTooth module : to communicate with external devices.
• Fingerprint sensor for user authentication.
• LEDs’ controller.
• Several bus controllers…

SOFTWARE :

The best part of the device is certainly its software. It’s based on the Coldfacts Embedded  platform provided by Digital Airways.

It includes:

• A full Ubuntu 16.04.4 LTS Linux distribution.
• Docker container manager.
• node.js and node.red.
• Mosquitto MQTT broker.
• DAWAI Artificial Intelligence Engine.
• MongoDB and mySQL.
• and much more…

We are currently blending the version 0.2 that should be the base for the first tests with real drivers.

Pictures above show the PCB connected to all the devices. You can see that it is not much larger than a credit card.