A leaky-wave antenna for fluid environments includes a waveguide cavity defined by a waveguide wall. The waveguide cavity is filled with a waveguide fluid. The waveguide walls are made of either an anisotropic material that utilize one of orthotropic stiffness of the anisotropic material to control mode conversion, a band gap material to approximate an acoustically rigid boundary, and a combination of the two materials.

Techniques for online information search and retrieval for a query including a digital audio waveform. In an aspect, an audio waveform is received and digitized by at least one of a plurality of audio input devices. The digitized audio waveforms are transmitted to a central processing unit, which formulates and submits a query to an online engine. The formulated query may include the at least one digital audio waveform. The online engine retrieves one or more online results relevant to the formulated query. The online results may include one or more relevant visual results, and/or one or more relevant audio results. The retrieved results are served in real-time back to a user, via a device having audio output capability, and/or a device having visual data output capability.

A method for determining a direction of at least one sound source using an audio system capturing by an array of microphones sound emitted by the at least one sound source. The method includes: emitting a sound by way of the at least one sound source; recording sound signals received by the array of microphones; executing cross-correlations between the received signals in order to deduce relative times of arrival therefrom; creating a sinusoidal function of time having a determined frequency and a phase offset dependent on the relative times of arrival; and computing to determine a direction value of the sound source in a spatial reference frame defined by the array of microphones, using the values computed from the sinusoidal function of time at input, presenting the direction value.

A device for determining a sound source direction determines a direction in which a source of a reached sound exists, based on at least one of a sound pressure difference between a first sound pressure that is a sound pressure of a first frequency component of a first part of the reached sound acquired by a first microphone and a second sound pressure that is a sound pressure of the first frequency component of a second part of the reached sound acquired by a second microphone, and a phase difference between a first phase that is a phase of a second frequency component of the first part of the reached sound and a second phase that is a phase of the second frequency component of the second part of the reached sound.

Systems and methods are provided for sensing acoustic signals using a floating base vector sensor. A vector sensor according to an embodiment of the present disclosure can be used to detect and characterize low frequency sound wave(s) in a viscous medium (e.g., air, water, etc.) by detecting a periodic motion of the media particles associated with the sound wave(s). The orientation of the particle velocity deduced from such measurements can provide information regarding the wave vector of the sound wave(s), can define the direction of arrival (DOA) for the acoustic signal, and can assist locating the source of the sound of interest.

Systems and methods are provided for sensing acoustic signals using a floating base vector sensor. A vector sensor according to an embodiment of the present disclosure can be used to detect and characterize low frequency sound wave(s) in a viscous medium (e.g., air, water, etc.) by detecting a periodic motion of the media particles associated with the sound wave(s). The orientation of the particle velocity deduced from such measurements can provide information regarding the wave vector of the sound wave(s), can define the direction of arrival (DOA) for the acoustic signal, and can assist locating the source of the sound of interest.

This document describes a system in which a sensory instrumentalitydetecting and monitoring its location within a particular environmentdetects and monitors aspects of its environment (such as, for example, sounds, movements, lighting, colors, surfaces, smells, tastes, signals or combinations of the foregoing) and then sends signals that triggers changes in the environment (or objects in the environment) based upon certain relational matches of locations and aspects of the environment detected. The method described in this document includes the steps of detecting and monitoring locations and the surroundings of a sensory instrumentality, comparing the combination of location and surroundings readings with specific parameters, and causing a change in one or more aspects of or in the environment (or one or more objects in the environment) when there is a match between a particular location, the detected aspect of the surroundings, and the specific parameter.

A hearing device comprises a sound system for estimating the direction of arrival of sound emitted by one or more sound sources creating a sound field. The sound system comprises an array of N sound receiving transducers (microphones), each providing an electric input signal, a processing unit comprising a) a model unit comprising a parametric model configured to be able to describe the sound field at the array as a function of the direction of arrival in a region surrounding and adjacent to the array; b) a model optimizing unit configured to optimize said model with respect to its parameters based on said sound samples; c) a cost optimizing unit configured to minimize a cost function of the model with respect to said direction of arrivals; d) an estimating unit configured to estimate the direction of arrival based on said parametric model with the optimized parameters and the optimized cost function.

In an embodiment, a transducer controller is configured to apply a damping signal to reduce energy stored in the transducer after the transducer has been driven with a drive signal to form a transmitted acoustic signal.

In an embodiment, a transducer controller is configured to apply a damping signal to reduce energy stored in the transducer after the transducer has been driven with a drive signal to form a transmitted acoustic signal.