simon fraser university school of engineering …whitmore/courses/ensc305/projects/2007/...figure 1:...

Simon Fraser University – School of Engineering Science Burnaby, BC, V5A 1S6

September 24, 2007

Dr. Andrew Rawicz

School of Engineering Science

Simon Fraser University

Burnaby, B.C. V5A 1S6

Re: ENSC 440 Project Proposal for an Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) Speech Enhancer

Dear Dr. Rawicz:

Attached is the Proposal for an ALS Speech Enhancer, which outlines our project for ENSC 440 (Capstone Engineering Science Project). The goal of the project is to build a portable speech enhancing device to be used by people living with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). This device aims to improve their speech clarity and intelligibility, allowing them to communicate efficiently. The enclosed proposal illustrates the various aspects of the project. It provides an overview of the project, design considerations taken by the team, sources of information and funding, tentative schedule, and organization of the project team. The proposal will also describe similar products existing in the market and explain the advantages of our product.

VChoice Inc. consisted of four fourth-year engineering students, Caroline Chen, Micky Pun,

Richard Tang, and Jeramy Wu, who are innovative and enthusiastic in building products that can

benefit people and society. Should you have any questions regarding our project, please feel

free to contact me via phone at (604)723-0145 or via email at [email protected].

Sincerely,

Caroline Chen

President and CEO

VChoice Inc.

Enclosure: Proposal for an Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) Speech Enhancer

Proposal for people living with ALS on BiPAP™ Therapy

Copyright © 2007, VChoice Inc. Innovation Design i

Executive Summary

“For millions of years, mankind lived just like the animals. Then something happened which

unleashed the power of our imagination. We learned to talk and we learned to listen. Speech has

allowed the communication of ideas, enabling human beings to work together to build the

impossible” ~ Steven Hawkings.

Vocal conversation is an irreplaceable mean of communication. Every day, thousands of people

living with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) worldwide are facing the challenge of making

clear speeches. A person who is diagnosed with ALS suffers from degeneration of nerve and

muscular systems while being healthy intellectually. On average, two new cases of ALS are

diagnosed every year per 100 000 individuals, which include as many as 30 000 Americans and

2500 Canadians at any time. 20 percent of the diagnosed will survive more than 5 years and

more with the advancement of medical treatments. Many People living with ALS had lived a

productive life; therefore, a device, which speaks for our vision to reunite these valuable

individuals to their family and friends through speech enhancement, is essential and in turn

improves their confidence and comfort.

Very few speech enhancers are available in the market which makes them expensive to acquire.

The microphone needs to be either put on the ears with battery on the waist or to be hidden

inside clothes to avoid feedback. Despite the high cost and inconvenience, the current speech

enhancers are not particularly helpful because those who are constantly on respiratory

machines have voice too weak to be picked up by microphones outside of their respiratory

masks. If the current devices’ microphones were placed inside a repertory mask, the devices

would fail to block out the breathing sounds.

Our team is proposing a low-cost speech enhancer which can be integrated with the respiratory

mask. It works as a mini microphone that amplifies voice, improves clarity and comprehension,

and eliminates background noises from the respiratory machine, while promising comfort by

avoiding physical contact between the microphone and the user.

VChoice Inc. consists of four fourth-year engineering science students with experience in

analog/digital circuit design, signal processing, and control systems. VChoice members also have

industrial experience in software development and real-time embedded system.

We propose the engineering cycle for this project will encompass research, design, and

integration. This cycle will span a thirteen-week period with December 12, 2007 as the

scheduled completion date for an operational prototype. The entire project is tentatively

budgeted at $680.00, which we expect to obtain from a variety of sources.


Copyright © 2007, VChoice Inc. Innovation Design ii

Table of Contents

Executive Summary ..................................................................................................................... i

List of Figures............................................................................................................................. iii

List of Tables .............................................................................................................................. iii

1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 1

2 System Overview ................................................................................................................ 2

3 Possible Design Solution ..................................................................................................... 3

3.1 Speech Microphone ..................................................................................................... 3

3.2 Throat Microphone ...................................................................................................... 3

3.3 Speech Generating Device (SGD) .................................................................................. 3

4 Proposed Design Solution ................................................................................................... 4

5 Sources of Information ....................................................................................................... 4

6 Budget and Funding ............................................................................................................ 5

6.1 Budget ......................................................................................................................... 5

6.2 Funding ........................................................................................................................ 5

7 Project Timeline .................................................................................................................. 6

8 Team Organization.............................................................................................................. 7

9 Company Profile ................................................................................................................. 8

10 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 9

11 References ........................................................................................................................ 10


Copyright © 2007, VChoice Inc. Innovation Design iii

List of Figures

Figure 1: Conceptual Overview of the System .............................................................................. 2

Figure 2: System Block Diagram ................................................................................................... 2

Figure 3: Gantt Chart and Milestone Dates (in diamond) ............................................................. 6

List of Tables

Table 1: Tentative Budget for the Entire Project .......................................................................... 5


Copyright © 2007, VChoice Inc. Innovation Design 1

1 Introduction

Steven Hawkings, the famous British theoretical physicist, suffers from amyotrophic lateral

sclerosis (ALS) disease. Despite the fact he is sixty-five and almost completely paralyzed, he is

still an active individual as part of the community promoting the importance of communication

through conversation.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or known as the Lou Gehrig’s disease, is a neuromuscular

disease in which one's motor neurons degenerate progressively and selectively leading to failure

of them transmitting electrical impulses from the brain to the voluntary muscles in all areas of

the body. When this occurs, a person will be paralyzed and hence lose his or her ability to

swallow, speak, and breathe. ALS, though not contagious or infectious, can happen to anyone at

any time with an average of 3-5 year life expectancy after onset of the disease.

People with ALS would eventually become breathing-impaired due to motor neurons losing

control of primary and accessory muscles of respiration, namely the diaphragm, neck, chest,

abdominal and back muscles. At this point, a device comes into play to helping them inhale and

exhale, by pushing different-pressured air into the lungs. Such device is given term non-invasive

positive pressure ventilation (NPPV), where a Bi-level Positive Airway Pressure (BiPAP™)

system being one product brand.

Anyone with NPPV needs a communication device to help them converse with others in times of

need; this is where our Speech Enhancer device is in demand to help fulfill this desire. For

people living with ALS in particular, we wish to avoid the worsening of speech quality due to not

only the noise produced by a BiPAP™ system, but also the deterioration of their own speech

muscles.

The objective of our project is to develop a speech enhancement system that integrates with

the BiPAP™ system. We wish to integrate breathing and voice technologies, to improve the

length and quality of communication between a person living with ALS and his or her family

members, therapist, caregivers, and anyone around. One or multiple microphone(s) will be

attached to the interior of the mask. The speech signal received from the microphone(s) will be

digitally processed through a signal processing block, and outputted to a single speaker.

The speech processing block will remove the ambient noise associated with the speech signal,

and further more improve the speech intelligibility using refining algorithms.

This document gives an overview of our product, design approach, timeline/schedule, cost

estimation, funding as well as source of information.



2 System Overview

Figure 1 illustrates the conceptual overview of the system we propose. A soft, noisy, or slurry

speech is obtained from people living with ALS using a microphone and then is transmitted to a

voice processing module. The voice processing module will analyze and enhance the input

speech, and then output the resulting clear speech to the speaker.

Figure 1: Conceptual Overview of the System

Figure 2 provides more detailed illustration of the system structure by representing the voice

processing module as three sub-modules, each with specific functionalities.

Figure 2: System Block Diagram



3 Possible Design Solution

Various technologies exist that can be utilized to solve speech enhancing problem, but none of

which can address all aspects of the difficulty. Compromises will need to be made if any of the

below solutions are put in practice. Speech enhancement is a relative new area of research

particularly with people living with ALS and progressively depending on bi-level ventilation and

respiratory assist device (RAD).

Some of the assistive devices regarding communication are very costly and have a lot to do with

speech generating device (SGD) involving software and computers. Regarding voice amplifying,

various microphones are used. One can spend more than five thousands US dollars for a speech

enhancer yet has to strap the battery on their waist and puts the microphone on one of the ears.

Another version allows one to hide a mini-microphone inside clothes to avoid feedback.

3.1 Speech Microphone A speech microphone will pick up primarily the speech signal, and reject signals in other

frequencies. However, the noise rejection is not perfect, and positive feedback loop still remains

a concern.

3.2 Throat Microphone Throat microphone appears to be a good solution, as it receives the noise from throat directly

and filters out any ambient noise present in the environment. Nevertheless, as ALS progresses,

one would first use the BiPAP™ system only at night, and eventually throughout the day as well.

Putting on the throat microphone every time one intends to initiate a conversation is not a

feasible solution.

3.3 Speech Generating Device (SGD) In terms of speech generating and voice enhancing, we can relate to one product currently in the market: Speech Generating Device (SGD) from Voicewave Technology Inc [10]. It targets on paralyzed vocal cord and intends to reduce talking fatigue. A person speaks into the microphone, and through enhanced auditory feedback (EAF) newly synthesized voice comes out. Noticeably, biometric voice is used so that outputted speech sounds just like a person. Yet more refinement can be made to voice enhancing algorithm and the device’s size and weight. Furthermore, the microphone cannot be integrated with any of the ventilation masks.



4 Proposed Design Solution

Our proposed solution improves the communication quality of those living with ALS on BiPAP™

therapy by placing a microphone inside of the BiPAP™ mask, enhance the speech signal using a

digital signal processing block (DSP), and output the signal to a single speaker unit.

The DSP block of our system will perform noise suppression using certain filtering algorithm to

reject any ambient noise as well as noise generated by the BiPAP™ machine. The DSP block will

also perform echo-cancelation to prevent positive feedback of the audio signal. Our product will

then further refine the speech signal to improve the intelligibility and remove the softy, breathy

or slurring texture of the sound. A person living with ALS will be able to communicate without

being limited by the BiPAP™ therapy and his or her weakened vocal system.

The main constraint of the project is the amount of time available. In the given thirteen weeks

we would need to conduct field research (with individuals living with ALS), research design

solution (noise suppression, noise/echo cancelation, speech intelligibility improvement), design,

implement, assembly, integration and finally field testing of our product on individuals affected

by ALS. Therefore, many aspects of the project may need to be compromised, including the

physical size and appearance of the device.

If more time and budget are allowed, this project can also be tuned and be applicable under

other high noise or mobile environment.

5 Sources of Information

In developing our project, we have directly connected with Jim McEwen, President of the ALS

Society, and one of his graduate students currently working on this area of research to seek

advice and expertise. Moreover, we will continue collaboration with those with ALS and their

caregivers to gain first-hand feedback for our design throughout the course in the social and

medical aspects.

Meanwhile, other than finding sources from interactions with intended users, we will also seek a

variety of sources in the technical, engineering, as well as the marketing aspects of our solution.

We will research from engineering/biomedical textbooks, technical reports, scientific journals,

existing product/competitors, companies/universities investigating on similar topics, and

organizations/agencies for funding. By looking through manufacturers' website we can learn

about the price and characteristics of different technical components we need for our system.



We also have the support from several of our faculty members in Engineering at Simon Fraser

University who have shown an interest and promised to be open to questions.

6 Budget and Funding

6.1 Budget Table 1 shows a tentative budget which roughly estimates our spending on hardware. Each item

is overestimated by 15% for contingency fund.

Table 1: Tentative Budget for the Entire Project

Item Cost (CND)

DSP evaluation board 600

BIPAP™ machine Sponsored

Microphone 30

Speaker 50

Total 680

Note that the evaluation board includes the simulation software and other related components.

6.2 Funding Based on the socially-profitable nature of our project, we are in the process of applying the

Wighton Engineering Development Fund, which will cover all our cost in hardware. We will also

receive a modest amount of contribution from Fred Heap. The remaining cost of the project will

be shared by the funders and executives of VChoice Inc.

The funding we gathered should cover all the cost we needed to develop a prototype of our

product.



7 Project Timeline

The Gantt chart below illustrates the amount of time will be spent on each phase of the project

and each phase’s expected start and end dates. The project milestones are also listed within the

Gantt chart along with their expected delivery dates.

Figure 3: Gantt Chart and Milestone Dates (in diamond)



8 Team Organization

VChoice Inc. is composed of four fourth-year undergraduate engineering students: Caroline

Chen, Micky Pun, Richard Tang, and Jeramy Wu. Each student possesses different areas of

expertise and distinct co-op working experiences, which allow VChoice Inc. to explore and apply

various engineering methods and technologies to the project. The details of each member’s

skills and backgrounds can be examined in the Company Profile section.

The organization of VChoice Inc. is structured such that each member will be assigned a specific

company role, which is responsible for different aspects of the project. Caroline Chen, as

President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), will be responsible for overall project progress and

organizational issues. Micky Pun, as Vice President of Marketing, will be responsible for

marketing the resulting product of and obtaining capital for the project. Richard Tang, as Vice

President of Operations, will be responsible for technical issues of the project through

organizing the technical operations and providing suggestions. Jeramy Wu, as Chief Financial

Officer (CFO), will be responsible for the financial aspect of the project by managing budget and

resolving financial issues.

In order to produce the best result within the required time frame, weekly meetings with all the

executive members are necessary. For every meeting, a chair person and a minute taker would

be assigned beforehand by rotation. The chair person of the meeting provides a meeting

agenda before the meeting and facilitates the flow of the meeting to ensure productivity and

efficiency. The minute taker would record all information discussed and decisions made during

the meeting so that every member can keep track of the progress of all the aspects of the

project even if he or she is late or absent for the meeting. Although we have a chair person to

each meeting, every team member has equal right in voicing his or her opinions during the

meetings.

The project tasks will be assigned to the team members according to their strengths and

weaknesses. Since the team consists of four members, tasks are generally divided between

team members such that every two members of the team will form a group and work together

on the same tasks. As the team members will also be involved in other courses, the group

forming will be adjusted according to their schedule. In other words, team members with

similar schedules will form a group, thus maximizing the amount of time the members have to

work together on the assigned tasks.

With a project of this large size, team communication and dynamics are one of the most

important elements required for the successful completion of the project. By organizing team

structure and understanding the importance of teamwork, members of VChoice Inc. are

confident that by the end of the semester, we will be able to provide excellent project results

while obtaining valuable collaborative experiences.



9 Company Profile

Caroline Chen – President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

Caroline Chen is a fourth-year Biomedical Engineering student at Simon Fraser University. She has eight-month co-op experience at NetLogic Microsystems, California, as an application engineer involving in FPGA circuit board design, specification, bring-up and system integration, and in analysis of potential defective knowledge-based processors (KBP). Her additional experiences on biomedical and physiological modeling, passion for charitable projects, along with strong organizational skills are integral elements for the team.

Micky Pun – Vice President of Marketing (VP Marketing)

Micky Pun is a fourth-year Computer Engineering student at Simon Fraser University. She has completed a co-op work term in Robotic research lab under supervision of Dr. Shahram Payandeh. This experience of working with hepatic surgical device has strengthened her laboratory skills on analyzing hardware performance. Resourceful and collaborative, she acquires knowledge on electric circuits, real-time embedded system, and software programming, all of which are valuable assets to the team’s success.

Richard Tang – Vice President of Operations (VP Operations)

Richard Tang is a fourth-year Computer Engineering student at Simon Fraser University with eight months of co-op at HSBC as an IT specialist and another eight months at Electronic Arts as a software programmer developing NCAA 07 PSP. He has programmed using with Eclipse C++, NetBeans Java, Flash Action Script, VB Script and VHDL using Altera FPGA board. Furthermore, He is always recognized as an initiator with great communication skills, which makes him fully capable to contribute to this task.

Jeramy Wu – Chief Finance Officer (CFO)

Jeramy Wu is a fourth-year Computer Engineering student at Simon Fraser University with previous co-op term experience in VTech Telecommunications Canada, where he was involved in the project of developing telecommunication testing equipments such as signal analyzer and DSP components. He is also familiar with C++, Java, VHDL programming languages, and various analog and digital circuits. As a well-organized and detail-oriented individual, he possesses excellent communication and team-working skills.



10 Conclusion

VChoice Inc. is dedicated to apply the technologies and methodologies of engineering science to

improve the quality of life for people living with ALS. We desire to offer the opportunity for

people with paralyzed vocal cord voice their thoughts and opinions and to retain enjoyable

social life while on BiPAP™ therapy.

Our solution is designed to help people living with ALS to improve their communication

capability in ways of speech enhancement. It is superior in functionality such that it not only

reduces noise in the background of the speech but also improves the intelligibility of the speech

of a person with ventilator. It is also practical as it merges the microphone into the BiPAP™

mask, on which those with latter stage of ALS depend, providing comfort and convenience.

With four funders encompassing diverse skill sets and unique yet relevant experiences, VChoice

Inc. has the capacity to provide outstanding results for the project. Not only we have a clearly

defined solution and well-planned schedule, we also have excellent sources of research

materials and financial supports. As a result, we are certain that our project will meet the

specified requirements and complete within the allocated time frame successfully.



11 References [1] ALS Society of British Columbia, ALS British Columbia Staff, June 07, 2007.

[online]. Available: http://www.als.ca/_units/british_columbia.aspx

[accessed: September 16, 2007]

[2] Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Society of Canada, “A Guide to ALS Patient Care for Primary Care Physicians - English”, Canada: Toronto, October 3, 2005.

[3] Charlie Wedemeyer Family Outreach, ALS Information, 2000-2005.

[online]. Available: http://www.cwfo.org/alsinfo.html


[4] Nuance Communications Inc., Nuance Recognizer V9, 2007.

[online]. Available: http://www.nuance.com/recognizer/


[5] Oster, Craig J. “Fighting ALS - A Psychologist’s Personal Journey into Augmentative

Communication”, US: Lansing, Michigan.

[online]. Available: http://www.speechenhancer.com/docs/Oster.htm


[6] Petrakis, Margie. “Non invasive positive pressure ventilation AKS BiPAP in ALS”, US, July 30, 2005.

[7] Robert Packard Center for ALS Research at Johns Hopkins, ALS Statistics, 2007.

[online]. Available: http://www.alscenter.org/about_als/stats.cfm


[8] Saltillo Corporation, Hummingbird (Scanning SA-1), 1998 – 2007. [online]. Available: http://www.saltillo.com/products/index.php?product=36&product_id=16 [accessed: September 18, 2007]

[9] Vaze, Reva. “Functional Specification for a Speech Enhancement System for Persons with ALS on BiPAP Ventilation”, Rev1, Canada: Vancouver, 2007.

[10] Voicewave Technology Inc., The Speech Enhancer – How It Works, 2007. [online]. Available: http://www.speechenhancer.com/howitworks.htm [accessed: January 19, 2006]

[11] Wikipedia article, Steven Hawkings, September 23, 2007.

[online]. Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Hawking


[12] Wikiquote article, Steven Hawkings' quotes, September 23, 2007.

[online]. Available: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stephen_Hawking


http://www.als.ca/_units/british_columbia.aspx

http://www.cwfo.org/alsinfo.html

http://www.nuance.com/recognizer/

http://www.speechenhancer.com/docs/Oster.htm

http://www.alscenter.org/about_als/stats.cfm

http://www.saltillo.com/products/index.php?product=36&product_id=16

http://www.speechenhancer.com/howitworks.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Hawking

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stephen_Hawking

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