A method, device and computer program product for controlling the device by tracking a movement of a hand or other objects. The device receives acoustic signals. At least a portion of the received signals are transformed into two-dimensional sinusoids whose frequencies are proportional to an angle-of-arrival (AoA) and a propagation distance of the reflected signals. An AoA-distance profile is derived based on signals received from the object by evaluating frequencies of the two-dimensional sinusoids. Then, an AoA-distance pair is derived from the AoA-distance profile. A current location of the object is determined based on the estimated AoA-distance pair. The device then performs a command in response to detecting that the user moved to perform the command based on prior and current locations of the object.

A device estimates direction of arrival (DOA) of sound from sound sources received by P microphones, wherein P≥>1. The device is configured to transform the output signals of the microphones into the frequency domain and compute a covariance matrix for each of N frequency bins in a range of frequencies of the sound. Further, the device is configured to calculate an adapted covariance matrix from each of the covariance matrices for wide-band merging, calculate an accumulated covariance matrix from the N adapted covariance matrices, and estimate the DOA for each of the sound sources based on the accumulated covariance matrix. In order to calculate an adapted covariance matrix from a covariance matrix, the device is configured to spectrally decompose the covariance matrix and obtain a plurality of eigenvectors, rotate each obtained eigenvector, and construct each rotated eigenvector back to the shape of the covariance matrix.

Processing acoustic signals to detect sound sources in a sound scene. The method includes: obtaining a plurality of signals representative of the sound scene, captured by a plurality of microphones of predefined positions; based on the signals captured by the microphones and on the positions of the microphones, applying a quantization of directional measurements of sound intensity and establishing a corresponding acoustic activity map in a sound source localization space, the space being of dimension N; constructing at least one vector basis of dimension less than N; projecting the acoustic activity map onto at least one axis of the vector basis; and searching for at least one local peak of acoustic activity in the map projection, an identified local peak corresponding to the presence of a sound source in the scene.

An acoustic-based Direction of Arrival (DoA) system uses acoustic information to determine the direction of incoming sound, such as a person talking. The direction of the sound is then used to focus a laser-based time of flight (ToF) system to narrow the area of laser illumination, improving the signal to noise ratio because laser illumination is focused on the direction of the sound. The DoA system also provides elevation information pertaining to the source of the sound, to further narrow the required field of view of the laser ToF system.

A system for analyzing a plurality of channels of data received from a sensor array. The system includes a data acquisition system that receives and independently processes each channel. A low-level processing section receives each channel of processed data and identifies signals of interest in one channel. Signals of interest are stored in an event database. A high-level processing section analyzes data occurring over a preset duration of time and across multiple channels of data and communicates with an operator machine interface. The operator machine interface provides analysis to an operator. Further aspects of the system characterize the data in order to indicate the data source and alert the operator to signals having certain predefined characteristics.

Methods and systems for spatial filtering transmitters and receivers capable of simultaneous communication with one or more receivers and transmitters, respectively, the receivers capable of outputting source directions to humans or devices. The methods and systems use spherical wave field partial wave expansion (PWE) models for transmitted and received fields at antennas and for waves generated by contributing sources. The source PWE models have expansion coefficients expressed as functions of directional coordinates of the sources. For spatial filtering receivers a processor uses the output signals from at least one sensor outputting signals consistent with Nyquist criteria representative of the wave field and the source PWE model to determines directional coordinates of sources (wherein the number of floating point operations are reduced) and outputs the directional coordinates and communications to a reporter configured for reporting information to humans. For spatial filtering transmitters a processor uses known receiver directions and source partial wave expansions to generate signals for transducers producing a composite total wave field conveying communications to the specified receivers. The methods and communications reduce the processing required for transmitting and receiving spatially filtered communications.

Provided is a source localization in an apparatus for performing a source localization, a target sound source enhancement or speech recognition. The source localization method using input signals input from a plurality of microphones, comprising steps of: (a) obtaining a log likelihood function or an auxiliary function under the assumption that a target source signal mixed with noises satisfies a CGMM model; (b) obtaining an equation for estimating parameter values of the log likelihood function or the auxiliary function so that a value of the log likelihood function or the auxiliary function is maximized recursively in each time frame; (c) estimating a covariance matrix recursively in each time frame; and (d) estimating a steering vector recursively by using the estimated covariance matrix, wherein the steering vector of the target sound source is estimated from the input signals.

A method of processing an acoustic image includes the steps of acquiring acoustic signals generated by acoustic sources in a predetermined region of space, generating a multispectral 3D acoustic image that includes a collection of 2D acoustic images, performing a frequency integration of the multispectral acoustic image for generating a 2D acoustic map locating at least one target acoustic source of interest and modeling the signal spectrum associated with the target acoustic source, generating a classification map obtained by comparing the signal spectrum of each signal associated with each pixel of the multispectral acoustic image and the model of the signal spectrum associated with the target acoustic source to distinguish the spectrum of the signal associated with the target acoustic source from the signal spectra associated with the remaining acoustic sources, and merging the classification map and the acoustic map to obtain a merged map.

Provided are a device control method and apparatus. The method is applied to an audio device, and includes: receiving an acoustic signal set, determining a propagation characteristic of an acoustic signal in the acoustic signal set, determining, according to the propagation characteristic, a device parameter associated with audio play quality to be used by the audio device, and controlling the audio device to play audio with the device parameter.

A method and apparatus for determining a direction of infrasound. Infrasound is received by a directional infrasound sensor comprising a plurality of channels and a plurality of sensor devices. Each channel in the plurality of channels comprises a single opening at a first end of the channel and a closed end opposite the opening. The opening of each channel in the plurality of channels is pointed in a different direction from the opening of each other channel in the plurality of channels. The plurality of sensor devices includes a sensor device at the closed end of each channel in the plurality of channels. Each sensor device in the plurality of sensor devices is configured to generate a sensor signal in response to pressure. The sensor signals generated by the plurality of sensor devices are processed to determine the direction of the infrasound received by the directional infrasound sensor.