9
0

Real-Time Emergency Vehicle Siren Detection with Efficient CNNs on Embedded Hardware

Marco Giordano
Stefano Giacomelli
Claudia Rinaldi
Fabio Graziosi
Main:8 Pages
10 Figures
Bibliography:2 Pages
Abstract

We present a full-stack emergency vehicle (EV) siren detection system designed for real-time deployment on embedded hardware. The proposed approach is based on E2PANNs, a fine-tuned convolutional neural network derived from EPANNs, and optimized for binary sound event detection under urban acoustic conditions. A key contribution is the creation of curated and semantically structured datasets - AudioSet-EV, AudioSet-EV Augmented, and Unified-EV - developed using a custom AudioSet-Tools framework to overcome the low reliability of standard AudioSet annotations. The system is deployed on a Raspberry Pi 5 equipped with a high-fidelity DAC+microphone board, implementing a multithreaded inference engine with adaptive frame sizing, probability smoothing, and a decision-state machine to control false positive activations. A remote WebSocket interface provides real-time monitoring and facilitates live demonstration capabilities. Performance is evaluated using both framewise and event-based metrics across multiple configurations. Results show the system achieves low-latency detection with improved robustness under realistic audio conditions. This work demonstrates the feasibility of deploying IoS-compatible SED solutions that can form distributed acoustic monitoring networks, enabling collaborative emergency vehicle tracking across smart city infrastructures through WebSocket connectivity on low-cost edge devices.

View on arXiv
@article{giordano2025_2507.01563,
  title={ Real-Time Emergency Vehicle Siren Detection with Efficient CNNs on Embedded Hardware },
  author={ Marco Giordano and Stefano Giacomelli and Claudia Rinaldi and Fabio Graziosi },
  journal={arXiv preprint arXiv:2507.01563},
  year={ 2025 }
}
Comments on this paper