Since the mid-1990s, Pryme Radio Products has been known for manufacturing some of the most rugged and capable portable police radio accessories. The company says its headsets are popular with law enforcement and other first responders because they offer clear sound, durable construction, and useful features.

Another reason Pryme has been so successful in the public safety market is the inventive mind of its president and chief technology officer Dr. David George. With more than 40 years in the radio accessories industry, George holds dozens of patents, and his latest invention is likely to have major impact on the way law enforcement officers communicate in noisy environments.

Pryme’s newest product line is NoiseMaster, radio accessories that use artificial intelligence to make it easier for officers to communicate over portable radios while operating in noisy environments. Pryme calls the patent-pending technology Active Intelligence Noise Canceling.

“I used to develop noise canceling technology 20 years ago when I was a radio designer. But we were always limited in that technology because it required digital signal processors, and they are expensive, large for microphones, and draw a lot of power. AI processor chips can now achieve the same level of performance without the cost, size, or power draw of digital signal processors,” George says.

The AI chips use deep learning technology and can sample 500 million sounds and retain them in its memory, according to George. “It hears all the stuff that’s going on around it. The chip knows when someone is using a lawnmower, or using a weed whacker, and it knows when the user is in a football stadium. And then when you talk, it can detect the voice and adjust the audio that’s going into the radio. It attenuates all the background noise and enhances the voice,” he says.

Development of Pryme’s Active Intelligence Noise Canceling technology and its incorporation into the NoiseMaster products took George and his team two years. “It was not just about adding the AI chip,” he explains. “We had to design a circuit board and we had to have the right software and make it work with the chip.”

George says Active Intelligence Noise Canceling is ideal for use by law enforcement because the AI chip can recognize the difference between droning continuous noise and sharp explosive noise. “The pump running on a fire truck at a fire or accident scene is a steady sound and the guns on a shooting range are a sudden ‘bang.’ In the past, you couldn’t make a microphone that would work at both places. Now, with AI, we can.”

Pryme believes its new NoiseMaster line of products will be particularly useful for motor officers. “There’s so much background noise on a motorcycle that constantly affects the quality of radio communications for the motorcycle officer,” George says.

The first two products in the NoiseMaster line are the SPM-NM10 Lapel/Surveillance Kit and the SPM-NM50 Series Remote Speaker Microphone. Both incorporate a high-sensitivity electret mic and Active Intelligence Noise Canceling, dedicated push-to-talk (PTT) buttons, and are powered by the radio (so there is no separate battery to charge).

Pryme Noise Master models also include automatic gain control, which can compensate for variations in volume between different voices or a single speaker. Another feature of the SPM-NM10 is Pryme’s tangle-resistant braided fiber cable.

George says the SPM-NM10 Lapel/Surveillance Kit and the SPM-NM50 Series Remote Speaker Microphone are just the beginning of Pryme’s NoiseMaster line and future products will have even more capability. “In another year or so, you’re going to see a ton of stuff. We’re just on the leading edge,” he explains.