Sound can be a pleasure or a pain. How does your company get rid of unwanted noise?
We have created a digital wide-band active noise-cancellation solution, which can be implemented in various kinds of devices. Using embedded software, it detects noise through various microphones and sensors, generates opposite anti-noise and combines them to get rid of the noise. It is outperforming anything on today’s market, cancelling more frequencies and doing a better job at it.

What is your professional background?
AVAtronics has three co-founders, all of us with extensive backgrounds in engineering and business. Fardad Zabetian is an expert in professional audio, Amir Farahani, the company’s CTO, and I both spent twenty years working in wireless telecom industry, developing high-performance, high-frequency, high-bandwidth solutions. We are a small, agile and complementary team. Amir is a system architect and system designer who has done many large-scale projects in the telecom world. I am the hardware designer and engineer. After I implement a solution, we test it together.

What sparked your interest in noise-cancellation?
A few years ago, we had a long-haul flight from Geneva to Shanghai. I bought two pairs of Bose noise-cancelling headphones for the trip; one for me and one for Amir. Initially, it was great: they masked the sound of the plane’s engine well. Then a baby started crying – we could hear everything. It did not make sense: you have this device that costs so much, but it cannot go above certain frequencies.

How did you go from a long-haul flight to establishing AVAtronics?
Out of curiosity, Amir started playing with algorithms after the trip. We noticed that we have a very good solution for a widespread problem that no-one had a solution to. We spent a year developing the technology and testing it. Initially, we thought that it would only be about headphones, but through contact with customers, we realized that there is a large range of applications.

How can sound-cancelling technology improve our everyday life?
At the very beginning, we were trying to address something that was bothering us – that baby crying, and loud people constantly speaking in public places. When you work in an open office and/or travel frequently, there is a lot of sound around you. If you want to focus and have a stress-free commute, you need to be able to get rid of the noise.

Is a noise-free environment a form of luxury?
No – it is a necessity. Many people are exposed to a lot of noise, which has implications for their health. In addition to stress, studies suggest that it is bad for the heart. Subconsciously, you are in a nervous situation all the time.

How much of a problem is noise at the office?
One study found that, in open office spaces, employees lose on average 86 minutes per day simply due to noise distractions. When you are trying to write a report and someone starts making noise, you lose your focus. By the time you return to your work, you have lost precious time. Our solution can give people peace of mind and help them do a better job. It can also improve remote communication, reducing the need for business travel. Companies get more output from staff and can stick to open offices, which keeps costs down. Overall, it improves employees’ productivity and happiness.

How can AVAtronics transform how we travel?
When you travel often, you come back tired. The last thing you want to hear is people talking or children shouting. If you travel by plane, it is much better if you can get rid of the high-pitched noises. There are two ways of doing this. The easier way is to wear headphones, improved to perform better than those currently available. The other is to have a system integrated into the plane or train seats that cancels the noise, without passengers having to wear, carry or buy headphones. We are looking into this; it is the ultimate goal.

With electric cars becoming increasingly popular, what is the potential for the automotive industry?
For electric cars to travel long distances and use their batteries better, they need to be light. They cannot have the insulation of a traditional car, which makes it heavy and would require a very powerful battery. The downside is that you can hear everything inside them. Road noise is a major complaint among owners of electric cars. As a result, manufacturers are becoming more focused on sound systems, so that you can play music that cancels everything. They are merely masking noise with music, though. Our solution, which we are in talks with several major players in the market, allows you to listen to music or just have peace and quiet, which creates a much better environment in the car during long drives. This will be a necessity in the future.

How could your solution help create a serene environment at hospitals?
There are people who try to get discharged from the hospital sooner than necessary because of the noise, which is not good for their long-term health. There is noise from machines, from medical staff walking around, and so on; patients cannot fall asleep properly. If you could integrate a noise-cancelling device into the headboards of hospital beds, for example, it would be a valuable product with the potential to help improve patients’ health and wellbeing.

What about during specific medical procedures?
MRI machines make a lot of noise, which people find annoying, especially children. If you create headphones that get rid of it, it is a very desirable solution. This is not a luxury; it is a necessity that does not exist at the moment.

Your company is also active when it comes to hearing aids. How can these be improved?
When you wear a hearing aid at a party, with lots of people talking around you, it can be a struggle to have a proper one-on-one conversation with the person in front of you – the device amplifies everything, with no separation. Our solution can get rid of the background noise, even if it is other people talking.

Could this be extended to smart speakers that use speech recognition?
For these devices, you need background noise reduction so that speech goes through more effectively. A high percentage of the errors currently made in voice-command communication come from the noises around you. Getting rid of them would eliminate those errors.

How sophisticated is the noise-cancelling technology currently available?
Even the newer technologies on offer have the bandwidth limitation. In every industry we have gone into, we outperform everyone: we have a wider bandwidth and can cancel more frequencies.

In simple terms, how does AVAtronics use algorithms to improve on existing technology?
Our algorithm uses electroacoustic modelling and prediction filtering. We start by extracting an electroacoustic model signature of the entire device that we want to apply noise-cancellation to. Based on that, we adapt our algorithm, which works based on prediction. We can see a little into the future: we anticipate noise and cancel it.

But there is no one-size-fits-all?
Even from headphones to headphones, we need to do some tuning. Their electroacoustic signature differs based on their structure, hardware, size, and so on.

Does your solution pass the baby-crying test?
Absolutely. It works for the frequency range known as the “baby crying zone” in the headphone industry.

At the individual consumer level, what scale could your solution be implemented on?
Anywhere with a microphone. For example, we all use mobile phones. Our solution can be installed there to create noise-free communication. Every person has at least two or three devices that they use daily that could benefit from active noise cancellation. Whoever you are, it will affect you in one way or another.

What will be the most promising developments in the next few months?
We are closing our first round of financing and are happy to have really good investors joining who can help us along the way – not just with money, but also with talking to customers and with growth in general. We are adding more and more applications to our portfolio; it is very exciting. The main development, at the same time the main challenge, in the next couple of months will be hiring qualified technical people who will be early key employees of AVAtronics.