One illustrative integrated electromagnetic-acoustic sensor includes: a ground plane; a patch antenna above the ground plane to send or receive an electromagnetic (EM) signal having an EM signal frequency; and an array of capacitive micromachined acoustic transducers formed by cavities between the patch antenna and a base electrode to send or receive an acoustic signal having an acoustic signal frequency. One illustrative sensing method includes: driving or sensing a EM signal between a ground plane and a patch antenna; and driving or sensing an acoustic signal between the patch antenna and a base electrode, the base electrode and the patch antenna having an array of capacitive micromachined acoustic transducer cavities therebetween.

Circuitry comprising excitation circuitry for supplying a transducer with an excitation signal to generate a detection signal and current monitor circuitry for monitoring current through the transducer.

This disclosure describes presence-detection devices that detect movement of a person by emitting ultrasonic signals into an environment, and characterizing the change in the frequency, or the Doppler shift, of the reflections of the ultrasonic signals off the person caused by the movement of the person. The techniques include downsampling the audio signals from the carrier frequency range down to a frequency range with a center frequency around 0 Hz. A filter is applied to attenuate signals around 0 Hz and below (or above), such as the emitted signals. In addition to removing the emitted signals, the negative side (or positive side) of the audio signals are removed, but the Doppler shift is still represented in the remaining portion of the audio signals. By removing a portion of the audio signals, the amount of processing required to detect the Doppler shift in the reflections of the ultrasonic signals is reduced.

A living object detection system may detect the interaction between an observer and a target object. The system may include an object sensor device, an object classification data unit, and an object detection module. The object sensor device may be attachable to the observer and include an ultrasonic sensor for sensing distance and a passive infrared sensor for sensing temperature. The object classification data unit may store predetermined object classifiers that identifies an object as a living object or non-living object. The object detection module may determine the target object as a living object or a non-living object based on the object classifiers stored in the object classification data unit and on a physical feature set of the target object, where the physical feature set may include distance and temperature parameters.

An object detection apparatus detects an object in a vicinity of a moving body to which it is mounted. In the object detection apparatus, first drive signal and second drive signals for driving a transmitting unit are generated and outputted to the transmitting unit. The first drive signal corresponds to a first transmission wave included in a plurality of transmission waves that are continuously transmitted from a start to an end of a transmission process of the transmission wave, and respectively encoded based on waveform patterns. The second drive signal corresponds to a second transmission wave included in the plurality of transmission waves and transmitted after the first transmission wave. Reception determination regarding the reflected wave is performed based on a frequency signal, corresponding to a waveform pattern of the reception signal, and a reference signal that corresponds to a waveform pattern of the first drive signal.

Techniques enabling improved classification of touch or hover interactions of objects with a touch sensitive surface of a device are presented. A speaker of the device can emit an ultrasonic audio signal comprising a first frequency distribution. A microphone of the device can detect a reflected audio signal comprising a second frequency distribution. The audio signal can be reflected off of an object in proximity to the surface to produce the reflected audio signal. A classification component can determine movement status of the object, or classify the touch or hover interaction, in relation to the surface, based on analysis of the signals. The classification component also can classify the touch or hover interaction based on such ultrasound data and/or touch surface or other sensor data. The classification component can be trained, using machine learning, to perform classifications of touch or hover interactions of objects with the surface.

Methods and devices for detecting movement of an object includes: receiving a first set of output signal values and a second set of output signal values from a sound wave receiver, each output signal value in the first set and the second set being representative of amplitude of an acoustic signal reflected from the object; determining, based on the received first set and second set, a difference set including one or more difference values, each of the one or more difference values being representative of a difference between a first output signal value in the first set and a second output signal value in the second set; determining whether the difference set satisfies a predetermined condition based on whether each difference value of the difference set has a magnitude exceeding a predetermined threshold; and outputting a motion detection signal if the difference set satisfies the predetermined condition.

To provide a mechanism for selectively taking an external sound from an appropriate sound source into an internal space of a moving object. An information processing apparatus including an acquisition unit configured to acquire an audio signal from a sound source existing outside a moving object, a generation unit configured to generate an audio signal from a target sound source at a distance from the moving object, the distance being a distance according to a speed of the moving object, of the sound sources, on the basis of the audio signal acquired by the acquisition unit, and an output control unit configured to output the audio signal generated by the generation unit toward an internal space of the moving object.

Methods and devices for detecting movement of an object includes: receiving a plurality of output signal values from a sound wave receiver, each of the plurality of output signal values being representative of a distance between the object and the sound wave receiver; determining, based on the received plurality of output signal values, a difference value representative of a difference between a first output signal value and a second output signal value among the plurality of output signal values; determining whether the difference value is representative of motion of the object based on whether the difference value has a magnitude between a predetermined minimum threshold and a predetermined maximum threshold; and outputting a motion detection signal if the difference value is determined to have a magnitude between the predetermined minimum threshold and the predetermined maximum threshold.

Methods and devices for detecting movement of an object includes: receiving a first set of output signal values and a second set of output signal values from a sound wave receiver, each output signal value in the first set and the second set being representative of amplitude of an acoustic signal reflected from the object; determining, based on the received first set and second set, a difference set including one or more difference values, each of the one or more difference values being representative of a difference between a first output signal value in the first set and a second output signal value in the second set; determining whether the difference set satisfies a predetermined condition based on whether each difference value of the difference set has a magnitude exceeding a predetermined threshold; and outputting a motion detection signal if the difference set satisfies the predetermined condition.