A method and apparatus for processing a transceiver signal (115) detected by a transceiver (110). The method includes obtaining (S1) a processed signal from the transceiver signal (115), the processed signal having frames (200, 300) corresponding to respective time intervals (t1, t2, t3, t4), wherein the frames define bins (210, 310) configured according to a quantized resolution (dr) of the transceiver signal (115). The method further includes obtaining (S2) data related to a relative motion of the transceiver (110) during a time interval (t1, t2, t3, t4) and initializing (S3) a residual distance to zero. For each frame (200, 300) and each respective time interval (t1, t2, t3, t4) the method further includes determining (S4) a shift distance (ds1, ds3) corresponding to a sum of the residual distance and a distance value (d1, d2) corresponding to a relative motion of the transceiver (110) in the respective time interval (t1, t2, t3, t4) and rounding (S5) the determined shift distance (ds1, ds3) with respect to the distance resolution (dr) to a rounded shift distance. The method then further includes updating (S6) the residual distance based on a difference between the determined shift distance (ds1, ds3) and the rounded shift distance, and generating (S7) an adjusted frame (304) by shifting the bins (310) of the frame by the rounded shift distance to account for relative transceiver motion with respect to the object (150) in the respective time interval. The method finally includes processing (S8) the signal by integrating bin values (210, 310) over the adjusted frames (300).

A method and a device perform data communication between a superordinate computer system of an ultrasonic measurement system and an associated ultrasonic sensor via a modified UART data interface. The method and device exit the UART protocol and use a special signaling protocol and a modification of the UART data interface for the duration of an ultrasonic measurement phase to transmit the arrival of echoes at the ultrasonic sensor promptly to the superordinate computer system and return to the UART protocol for the data transmission from the ultrasonic sensor to the superordinate computer system after the end of the ultrasonic measurement phase.

Beamformed sonar data is compressed before communicating the data to a storage step or to a further processing step. At lease some of the beams of the compressed beamformed data have values for at least two different ranges.

A method and system of imaging at least one passive object within a surrounding structure is provided. The surrounding structure has multiple surfaces. The method includes: transmitting an ultrasonic signal into the surrounding structure using an array of ultrasonic transmitters and receiving reflections from the passive object using an array of ultrasonic receivers. The method also includes steering the ultrasonic signal such that it includes at least one reflection off a surrounding structure surface using stored data relating to a position of at least one of the surfaces.

A processing system for processing signals from a plurality of transducers of an ultrasonic sensor in order to determine characteristic information relating to an object detected by the ultrasonic sensor is provided. The system comprises a coupling device for transforming the signals received from the transducers into pulses, and a pulse processing unit for determining the characteristic information based on the pulses delivered by the coupling device. The coupling device comprises: a thresholding unit for applying, for each signal received from a transducer, thresholding to a signal derived from the signal received from the transducer and extracting directional information contained in the phase of the derived signal; a transformation unit for transforming the derived signal into pulses containing the phase of the signal, using the information extracted by the thresholding unit.

In a sonar system using a large array multielement sonar detector to detect reflected signals sent out by a sonar ping generator, the sent out sonar ping generator sends out varying frequency sonar signals during each ping, where the frequency is neither monotonically increasing or monotonically decreasing.

A method for acquiring the surrounding environment of a motor vehicle. The motor vehicle has at least one ultrasound sensor. The ultrasound sensor includes an ultrasound transducer for sending, the ultrasound sensor receiving acoustic environmental signals, in particular audible environmental signals, in that the ultrasound sensor is controlled in its evaluation in such a way that sound waves having frequencies below a resonant frequency of the ultrasound transducer, in particular audible sound waves, of an environmental signal are acquired and evaluated. Environmental signals are understood as acoustic signals that are not produced by the ultrasound transducer itself, but rather by an external sound source that in particular differs from the motor vehicle. This can be for example the siren of a rescue vehicle or emergency vehicle, or the horn of some other motor vehicle.

A pulse running time filling level sensor includes a sampling device for sampling an IF signal at discrete instants and for converting the sampling values into digital sampling values, and a digital signal processing device for subsequent processing of the digital sampling values by calculating at least one new value characterizing the IF curve from respectively exactly two digital sampling values.

Ultrasonic ranging state management for a UAV is described. A transducer transmits an ultrasonic signal and receives an ultrasonic response thereto using a gain value. A noise floor estimation mechanism determines a noise floor estimate. A state mechanism sets an ultrasonic ranging state used by the transducer to a first ultrasonic ranging state. The transducer transmits an ultrasonic signal and responsively receive an ultrasonic response to the ultrasonic signal using a gain value according to the noise floor estimate. The state mechanism processes the ultrasonic response to determine whether to determine a new noise floor estimate, adjust the gain value used by the transducer, or change the ultrasonic ranging state of the UAV to a second ultrasonic ranging state. The configurations of the first and second ultrasonic ranging states differ as to, for example, power and gain levels used by the transducer to receive ultrasonic responses.

A system and method for qualitative analysis of time progressive signals, comprising: a qualitative signal analysis module, comprising at least a processor, a memory, and a long term storage device; and an output processor module comprising at least a processor a memory and a network interface has been devised. The qualitative signal analysis module retrieves signal data over time and applies pre-programmed protocols to compare multiple aspects of the signal data to derive meaningful data. The output processor module encodes data generated by the qualitative signal analysis module for use in subsequent analytical steps such as further manipulation, classification or long term storage.