887results about "Direction/deviation determination systems" patented technology

In a sensory input system that detects movement of a user's fingers on an inert work surface, two or more input modes (for instance, keyboard and mouse) are provided within an overlapping or coextensive physical space. Depending on the currently active mode, the invention interprets the finger motions as input according to one of the input modes. Automated and / or manual mode-switching are provided.

A system locates a speaker in a room containing a loudspeaker and a microphone array. The loudspeaker transmits a sound that is partly reflected by a speaker. The microphone array detects the reflected sound and converts the sound into a microphone signal. A processor determines the speaker's direction relative to the microphone array, the speaker's distance from the microphone array, or both, based on the characteristics of the microphone signals.

A method and apparatus for detecting an aircraft. The method is provided for wide area tracking of aircraft. An acoustic emission of the aircraft is detected from a plurality of locations. A position of the aircraft at a set of times is estimated by comparing a set of harmonically related Doppler shifted frequencies for the acoustic emission to an expected zero Doppler shifted frequency of the aircraft to form an estimated position. The position of the aircraft and a heading of the aircraft are tracked using the estimated position. The aircraft type is classified based on the corresponding set of zero Doppler frequencies at each acoustic sensor.

The invention provides a method and apparatus by which the direction in or the position at which a signal source such as a sound source is present is estimated. A signal or signals from a signal source or a plurality of signal sources are received by a plurality of reception apparatus, and the received signals are decomposed into signals of different frequency bands by a plurality of band-pass filters. Then, cross correlation functions between the different frequency band signals are calculated for individual combinations of the reception apparatus for the individual corresponding frequency bands. If the power of noise having no directivity is high in some of the frequency bands, then the cross correlation functions of the frequency band do not exhibit a maximum value. Therefore, an influence of the noise can be suppressed effectively when delay times of the individual reception apparatus which depend upon the direction or directions or the position or positions of the signal source or sources are estimated.

A microphone array, beam forming method and apparatus using the microphone array, and a method and apparatus for estimating an acoustic source direction using the microphone array are provided. The apparatus for forming constant directivity beams comprising: a microphone array, which is comprised of first through n-th microphone sub-arrays, wherein each of the microphone sub-arrays comprises: a first microphone placed at a predetermined location on a flat plate, which commonly belongs to each of the microphone sub-arrays; and second and third microphones placed at locations perpendicularly spaced by a predetermined segment from a straight line connecting the first microphone and the center of the flat plate, the predetermined segment being determined depending on a target frequency allotted to reach of the microphone sub-arrays, a beam formation unit receiving voice signals output from the first through n-th microphone sub-arrays and generating a beam for each of the first through n-th microphone sub-arrays; a filtering unit filtering the beams output from the beam formation unit; and an adding unit adding the filtered signals output from the filtering unit.

An acoustic tracking system that uses an array of microphones to determine the location of an acoustical source. Several points in space are determined to be potential locations of an acoustical source. Beamforming parameters for the array of microphones are determined at each potential location. The beamforming parameters are applied to the sound received by the microphone array for all of the potential locations and data is gathered for each beam. The most likely location is then determined by comparing the data from each beam. Once the location is determined, a camera is directed toward this source.

An input device provides input to a portable electronic device. The device detects movement of a user's fingers on an inert work surface, and transmits signals representing the detected input to the electronic device. The input device can take any of several forms, including a cradle or protective cover that attaches to the electronic device, or a separate unit that transmits signals to the electronic device via a wired connection or wireless connection. In an embodiment, techniques are employed to properly position the input device despite user adjustment to the position of the electronic device. In an embodiment, further techniques are employed to maximize the stability of the input device and to protect its components from damage.

A telemetric contextually based spatial audio system is integrated into a mobile terminal including a headset and antenna. The headset includes an electronic compass which determines head orientation data for the user. The terminal's geographical position can either be determined locally (e.g. onboard GPS) or by network triangulation. The orientation and position data are sent to a server which overlays the position and head orientation data onto a locally stored “floor plan”, describing an object(s) of interest. The floor plan relates the user's viewpoint to a database of contextual audio clips. A regionally significant portion of the database and respective triggers are sent to the terminal. The terminal using the database information recalculates which audio clip(s) to play. The terminal then convolves the respective audio clip(s) via an impulse response function so as to be perceived by the user as emanating from the exact spatial position of the object specified by the system.

According to an embodiment, a sound source direction estimation apparatus includes an acquisition unit, a generator, a comparator, and an estimator. The acquisition unit is configured to acquire acoustic signals of a plurality of channels from a plurality of microphones. The generator is configured to calculate a phase difference of the acoustic signals of the plurality of channels for each predetermined frequency bin to generate a phase difference distribution. The comparator is configured to compare the phase difference distribution with a template generated in advance for each direction, and calculate a score in accordance with similarity between the phase difference distribution and the template for each direction. The estimator is configured to estimate a direction of a sound source based on the scores calculated.

A system and method for finding the direction of a wave source using an array of sensors. The system includes a sensor array for measuring waves from the wave source, an approximate-direction finder for finding the approximate direction of the wave source in terms of a sensor pair from the sensors, a precise-direction finder for finding the precise direction of the wave source based on the approximate direction found, and a measurement qualification unit for evaluating the validity of the precise direction under a measurement criterion and discarding the measurements if the criterion is not met.

A telemetric contextually based spatial audio system is integrated into a mobile terminal including a headset and antenna. The headset includes an electronic compass which determines head orientation data for the user. The terminal's geographical position can either be determined locally (e.g. onboard GPS) or by network triangulation. The orientation and position data are sent to a server which overlays the position and head orientation data onto a locally stored “floor plan”, describing an object(s) of interest. The floor plan relates the user's viewpoint to a database of contextual audio clips. A regionally significant portion of the database and respective triggers are sent to the terminal. The terminal using the database information recalculates which audio clip(s) to play. The terminal then convolves the respective audio clip(s) via an impulse response function so as to be perceived by the user as emanating from the exact spatial position of the object specified by the system.

A system and method are provided for automatically tracking the movements of an acoustic source relative to two or more microphones possibly mounted in a portable device. The microphones are mounted so that they may be separated from an acoustic source that can be more than three inches from the portable device. By automatically tracking the location of a portable device, a directional response of unidirectional microphones in a far field setting can be steered so that the radial axis of the directional response aligns with the path in which the acoustic wave travels from the source to the microphones. By tracking the source and steering the directional response of the microphones, the system can thereby properly delay and filter electrical signals added to the outputs from corresponding microphones to maximize the signal-to-noise ratio of the ensuing signal.

The invention provides a computer-implemented method for determining a time delay for time delay compensation of a microphone signal from a microphone array in a beamformer arrangement. For a given time, an instantaneous estimate of a position of a wanted sound source and / or of a direction of arrival of a signal originating from the wanted sound source is determined. The computer system then determines whether the instantaneous estimate deviates from a preset estimate of a position of the wanted sound source and / or of a direction of arrival of a signal originating from the wanted sound source according to a predetermined criterion. The predetermined criterion comprises a check whether the instantaneous estimate deviates from the preset estimate by at least a predetermined deviation threshold. If the predetermined criterion is fulfilled, the instantaneous estimate for the given time is set by the computer system as the preset estimate, and the computer system determines the time delay for time delay compensation of the microphone signal based on the instantaneous estimate.

A system and method for protecting sensor positions in an array of acoustic sensors which make up a gunfire locator system. The inventive system includes a purity of sensors and a host computer. Each sensor includes: a microphone for receiving acoustic information; a processor for processing acoustic information to detect an acoustic event and determine a time of arrival; a GPS receiver; an encryption module for encrypting transmitted sensor positions; and a network interface for transmitting sensor positions and times of arrival. The host computer includes: a network interface for receiving sensor transmissions; an encryption module for deciphering sensor positions; and a CPU.

A method for determining position of a mobile electronic device includes emitting an acoustic pulse from the position of the mobile electronic device. The acoustic pulse is detected at a known position at three spaced apart locations along each of at least two lines extending in different directions. The range and phase difference of the acoustic pulse between each of the detecting locations is determined. A relative position of the device with respect to the known position is obtained from the range and phase differences.

The invention relates to a method and a system for monitoring and position determination of objects and / or living beings within an area, such as, e.g. a room in a building or a road tunnel. The system comprises a plurality of identification tags equipped with an ultrasonic receiver and radio transmitter which is attached to the objects that have to be monitored. The identification tags receive ultrasonic signals whose arrival time they measure. This information together with the identification tags'ID code are transmitted by radio waves to a central unit which calculates the position of each of the identification tags.

An object of the present invention is to turn microphones accurately and quickly toward a sound source. The first microphone pair is rotated by rotation means and driving means, so that the microphones are equidistant from a sound source. The sound picked up by the microphones is analyzed in a plurality of frequency ranges to obtain delay time components of the arrival of the sound wave. The delay time components are averaged with a prescribed coefficients so that the lower frequency components hardly affects the result of the direction detection. The averaged delay is converted into an angle of direction of the sound source. Thus, the microphones pair is directed in front of the sound source on the basis of the direction angle converted from the averaged delay time.

A wide frequency band micromachined microphone including a plurality of micromachined cells of the type including electrodes carried by a membrane supported above a common electrode with conductive lines interconnecting the electrodes is described. A method of operating a microphone array is also described.

A camera tracking system includes a controllable camera, an array of microphones, and a controller. The microphones are positioned adjacent the controllable camera and are at least responsive to ultrasound emitted from a source. The microphones may additionally be capable of responding to sound in the audible spectrum. The controller receives ultrasound signals communicated from the microphones in response to ultrasound emitted from the source and processes the ultrasound signals to determine an at least approximate location of the source. Then, the controller sends one or more command signals to the controllable camera to direct at least approximately at the determined location of the source. The camera tracking system tracks the source as it moves and continues to emit ultrasound. The source can be an emitter pack having one or more ultrasonic transducers that produce tones that sweep form about 24-kHz to about 40-kHz.

Disclosed is a technique for localizing a sound source. In the technique, a sound pressure signal measured by microphones is acquired using a spherical microphone array sensor where the microphones are fixedly arranged on a surface of a spherical body. A sound pressure distribution on the surface of the spherical body is obtained by a controller from a sound pressure calculation formula for calculating a sound pressure at a certain location of a spherical surface using the sound pressure signal measured by the microphones as an input value. A location of the sound source is estimated from the obtained sound pressure distribution.

A sound processing apparatus includes a sound collection position calculating unit configured to calculate sound collection positions of sound signals of multiple channels on the basis of the sound signals, a sound source direction calculating unit configured to calculate a sound source direction on the basis of the sound signals of multiple channels, a first transfer function calculating unit configured to calculate a first transfer function corresponding to the sound source direction on the basis of the sound signals of multiple channels, and a second transfer function calculating unit configured to calculate a second transfer function by interpolating the first transfer function corresponding to each of a plurality of sound source directions.

The different advantageous embodiments provide a method and apparatus for detecting an aircraft. The different advantageous embodiments may provide a method for detecting an acoustic emission emitted by the aircraft using a number of acoustic sensors to form a detected acoustic emission. The aircraft may be identified from the detected acoustic emission to form an identified aircraft. A bearing may be estimated for the identified aircraft using the detected acoustic emission.

A method and apparatus enabling information including respective angular directions to be obtained for one or more sound sources includes a sound source direction estimation section for frequency-domain and time-domain processing of sets of output signals from a microphone array to derive successive estimated angular directions of each of the sound sources. The estimated directions can be utilized by a passage detection section to detect when a sound source is currently moving past the microphone array and the direction of the sound source at the time point when such passage detection is achieved, and a motion velocity detection section which is triggered by such passage detection to calculate the velocity of the passing sound source by using successively obtained estimated directions. In addition it becomes possible to produce directivity of the microphone array, oriented along the direction of a sound source which is moving past the microphone array, enabling accurate monitoring of sound levels of respective sound sources.

Systems and methods for locating the shooter of supersonic projectiles based on shockwave-only measurements are described. Muzzle blast signals are neither sought nor required. The system uses at least five, preferably seven, acoustic sensors that are spaced apart at least 1 meter. The sensor signals are acquired with a time resolution in the order of microseconds and processed to find and disambiguate the shockwave arrival angle unit vector. Two different Time-Difference-Of-Arrival (TDOA) measurement techniques are described, with one technique using counters in each signal channel and the other technique using cross-correlation between signal channels. A genetic algorithm can be used to efficiently disambiguate the results.

A method and system for determining the position of a sound source in relation to a reference position, comprising the steps of generating a sound signal emitted from the sound source, detecting the emitted sound signal, processing the sound signal by the use of a physiological model of the ear, deducing at least one of lateral deviation in relation to the reference position, time delay of the sound signal from the sound source to the reference position, and the sound level of the detected sound signal.

The invention relates to a method and a system for monitoring and position determination of objects and / or living beings within an area, such as, e.g. a room in a building or a road tunnel. The system comprises a plurality of identification tags equipped with an ultrasonic receiver and radio transmitter which is attached to the objects that have to be monitored. The identification tags receive ultrasonic signals whose arrival time they measure. This information together with the identification tags'ID code are transmitted by radio waves to a central unit which calculates the position of each of the identification tags.

A sound determination apparatus receives acoustic signals by a plurality of sound receiving units, and generates frames having a predetermined time length. The sound determination apparatus performs FFT on the acoustic signals in frame units, and converts the acoustic signals to a phase spectrum and amplitude spectrum, which are signals on a frequency axis, then calculates the difference at each frequency between the respective acoustic signals as a phase difference, and selects frequencies to be the target of processing. The sound determination apparatus calculates the percentage of frequencies at which the absolute values of the phase differences of the selected frequencies are equal to or greater than a first threshold value, and determines that the acoustic signal coming from the nearest sound source is included in the frame when the calculated percentage is equal to or less than a second threshold value.

The invention discloses a co-prime array DOA (direction of arrival) estimation method based on interpolation virtual array covariance matrix Toeplitz reconstruction, and mainly solves a problem of information loss caused by the heterogeneity in a virtual array in the prior art. The method comprises the implementation steps: constructing a co-prime array at a receiving end; receiving an incident signal through the co-prime array, and carrying out the modeling; calculating an equivalent virtual signal corresponding to the signal received by the co-prime array; constructing an interpolation virtual array and carrying out the modeling; constructing a multi-sampling snapshot signals of the interpolation virtual array and a sampling covariance matrix; constructing a projection matrix, and defining projection calculation related with the projection matrix; constructing a reference covariance matrix according to all information in an original virtual array, designing an optimization problem based on the interpolation virtual array covariance matrix Toeplitz reconstruction, and solving the optimization problem; and carrying out the DOA estimation according to the reconstructed interpolation virtual array covariance matrix. The method improves the freedom degree and resolution of signal DOA estimation, and can be used for the passive positioning and target detection.

A system for measuring the height of bin contents includes transmitters for transmitting pulses of wave energy towards the upper surface of the contents and receivers for receiving echoes of the pulses and producing corresponding signals. The transmitters and receivers are distributed aerially above the contents. The system also includes a processing apparatus, for using the received signals to map the upper surface, that includes correlators that correlate pulse waveforms with the signals, and a beamformer. In one embodiment, the beamformer computes, from the signals considered as corresponding to echoes, of pulses from fewer synthetic transmitters, received at a synthetic receiver array, respective directions of arrival of the signals. In another embodiment, the beamformer computes respective directions of transmission and arrival of the signals, and the processing apparatus also includes a processor that selects, according to the computed transmission and arrival directions, which signals to use for the mapping.