MicArray UAC Drive Board (MA-USB8)

2025-08-22

Introduction

Driving a microphone array module, it provides UAC2.0 + CDC ACM + UART interfaces.

  • UAC2.0: 8CH S16_LE 48000HZ
  • CDC ACM: 16x16 Hotmap Frame
  • UART: 16x16 Hotmap Frame on baudrate:2000000

Hotmap Frame Format:

frame bytes value
head 16 16x 0xFF
data 16x16 (HxW) ...

Connection

Choose one of the following connection methods:

  • Preferred: USB <---> UAC2.0 + CDC ACM (Full functionality: obtain audio data and sound field map simultaneously)

  • Or: UART/USB2TTL <---> UART (Limited performance scenarios, e.g., MCU: obtain sound field map only)

Linux


Windows

Usage

USB UAC2.0 (Audacity)

Windows WASAPI

USB UAC2.0 Beamforming (Audacity)

This board supports 12-direction beamforming, which suppresses audio from other directions than the user-set monitoring direction, thereby achieving noise reduction and gain for the target monitoring direction. The following example uses a sine wave audio test for demonstration:

Mic0(CH0) is near the 500HZ SINE wave and Mic3(CH3) is near the 1000HZ SINE wave.

Type 0 in serial so that CH6 is the output of beamforming at CH0.

Obviously on CH6, the gain of the 500 Hz sine wave signal near CH0 has been increased, while the impact of the 1000 Hz sine wave signal from other directions has been eliminated.

USB CDC ACM RAW (Minicom) and USB2TTL UART HEX-CMAP (Picocom)

USB CDC ACM RAW (Minicom)

minicom -D /dev/ttyACM0 -H

USB2TTL UART RAW (Minicom)

minicom -D /dev/ttyUSB0 -b 2000000 -H

USB2TTL UART RAW,HEX-CMAP (Picocom)

  1. picocom -b 2000000 /dev/ttyUSB0

  1. type F and then C
  1. type f

Commands

Command Input (Lower/Uppercase: Off/On) Default Remarks Input Sources
Set UAC CH6 Beamforming Direction Angle 0,1,..9,A,B 0 Actual angle = input value × 30 (0,1,..B => 0°,30°,...,330°). Corresponds to the clockwise direction starting from microphone 0, as per the microphone array. Any
UART Sound Source Map Pseudocolor Mapping Toggle c, C c Requires precondition: UART 16x16 sound source map printing enabled. UART input only
UART Internal Debug Info Toggle d, D d Controls internal debugging output. UART input only
LED Real-Time Sound Direction Indicator Toggle e, E E Controls LED indicators. Any
UART 16x16 Sound Field Map Print Toggle f, F f Toggles printing of 16x16 sound source map (ASCII). UART input only
Restore Default Settings R \ Restores a series of configurations to default values. Any

Firmware

Download it from here and then refer to this guide to update the firmware.