Within Rutronik System Solutions, Rutronik Elektronische Bauelemente GmbH offers the Adapter Board – Text To Speech, a new development that provides a wide range of HMI (Human Machine Interface) applications. The core of the board is the Text To Speech IC from Epson. Featuring Arduino pinout, the audio output of twelve languages, and easy implementation via standard PC, the board is flexible in its use and significantly shortens the time to market.
Communication between people and machines brings many advantages in various application scenarios. Consequently, speech control is used more and more frequently in products. The Rutronik Adapter Board – Text To Speech offers a flexible, functional, and compact solution thanks to its Arduino pinout, the speech output of twelve languages, and the implementation by using a standard PC. Due to these features, the board can be used for a variety of HMI applications, for example for vending machines, access control, or healthcare products.
“Our Rutronik Adapter Board – Text To Speech offers developers the possibility to make their products multilingual quickly and easily by embedding an IC. To achieve this, we use hardware and software from Epson, which we have adapted accordingly as part of Rutronik System Solutions. So we create maximum flexibility in terms of applications and use in different markets around the world,” said Stephan Menze, Head of Global Innovation Management.
Epson hardware and software modified by Rutronik System Solutions
The main component of the board is Epson’s hardware and software, adapted by the experts at Rutronik System Solutions. Rutronik uses the Arduino standard and Epson’s technology to develop the board. A PSoC6 driver is available, which works perfectly in combination with the RDK2 development kit as a host. In addition, Rutronik’s experts developed a PSoC4 driver. That also allows the use of PSoC4 boards from Cypress.
The S1V3G340 sound IC controlled by the host microcontroller can play the previously defined language, which is located as a binary in the external NOR flash. During the flash process, the USB to SPI-Bridge converts the data from the USB protocol to a serial protocol. Epson’s IC provides a PC tool that enables the uncomplicated creation of high-quality speech data or speech output without the need for expensive studio recordings. That saves costs and speeds up time to market.
