Analysis of time software and hardware delays in audio module circuits with cyber-physical SPICE emulation

Objectives. The study sets out to parametrically investigate the impact of time delays within cyber-physical emulation circuits for signal audio modules. Specifically, it examines how delays introduced by analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converters of the hardware/software interface, the central processor, and the visual graphical emulation (VGE) software environment are influenced by factors like the selected data input-output protocol and the VGE block preset configurations such as sampling rate, buffer size and time, and the number of channels.
Methods. Used methods of architectural SPICE3 modeling of electrical circuits on the VGE Simulink software platforms leverage the resources of the Simscape library and LiveSPICE. Additional methods include those for incorporating differential equations in the numerical analysis of SPICE models designed for analog circuits and techniques for processing experimental data generated from cyber-physical emulation using the built-in Simulink environment and associated laboratory radio measurement tools.
Results. The study introduces a novel approach to emulate analog audio devices using cyber-physical SPICE modeling. Through the use of digital twins, the study investigates the impact of modifiable parameters on signal delays within audio module circuits during cyber-physical emulation. Based on these findings, technical guidelines are provided for selecting appropriate delay correction settings between 20 and 120 ms to ensure efficient highspeed audio signal post-processing.
Conclusions. By configuring the VGE software block’s settings identically to the ASIO4 data input/output protocol prevalent in audio interface technology (44.1 kHz sampling frequency, 8 buffer size) substantially decreased latency in typical audio module circuit nodes is achieved with cyber-physical emulation built into the VGE LiveSPICE environment. The achieved time delays of 5 ms direct transmission circuit contrast with the 7 ms latency observed in the cyber-physical emulation of the SPICE circuit when both are benchmarked within the VGE Simulink environment. The successful implementation of cyber-physical emulation for SPICE models is achieved through the use of particular settings, such as a 44.1 kHz sampling frequency, buffer sizes ranging from 512 to 1024 samples, and the use of the ASIO data input/output protocol.

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