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Beaglebone feasabilty question

Former Member

I'm looking to make a software defined radio, MP3 player & intercom system for my motorcycle.  The only thing I'm not sure of is can the Beaglebone (probably Black) handle 2 microphone inputs in full duplex and output sound to 2 sets of headset speakers? If so what's the best way of going about it?

 

Is there another bord that would be better suited to this project?

 

Thanks.

  • Hi David,

     

    MP3 player should be straightforward (see a blog post on how to build a DAC for it, or you could use a USB sound card). Another approach would be to use an ipod and control it from a small microcontroller.

    For an intercom, this probably doesn't require any processor board, since an intercom is a very analog thing, unless some signal processing needs to be done to it. If you want to do switching then could be done by the BBB of course, or any small microcontroller (e.g. arduino).

    For SDR, do you mean you want a radio for the motorcycle? It won't be high quality trying to do this using SDR, if you're looking at FM stations. It's quite easy to build up an FM receiver (or purchase an FM module) and control it from a BBB or any microcontroller however. Some care is needed to prevent noise from the digital electronics from messing up your audio.

  • in reply to shabaz

    I do plan on some signal processing, such as when someone speaks the music is muted.  Can a microphone be pluged directly into the GPIO pins on a Beagle bone or does it need more electrinics? The mic I'm curently using is a dynamic mic.

     

    I was thinking of useing the SDR because I want to have FM radio and weather band and I though it might be a simple and cheap solution using one of the USB dongles.  Quality is not too much of an issue because there is plenty of outside noise, even with a full face helmet.

     

    I'm still in the reseach/feasability stage of this project.  I have Ideas to expand this concept over time, like adding GPS and voice commands, but i'm trying to keep it simple for starters.

  • in reply to Former Member

    A microphone can be connected using a USB soundcard into the BBB. By the way muting or reducing the volume can be done without feeding audio into the processor (although it is needed if you want voice commands of course). If you have an SDR software application in mind, it should compile and run on the BBB since it is just a Linux platform but broadcast station FM are packed close, and a lot of the SDR dongles as I understand are designed for TV I think? i.e. a far higher bandwidth gets allowed in, and I don't know if any SDR dongle will be good for this (I would have thought not, but I just now googled and according to this URL, it says broadcast FM does work, so you may be ok with this method.