Acoustic spatial diagnostics for smart home management

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10310082-B2
Application number	US-201715810129-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 12, 2017
Priority date	Jul 27, 2017
Publication date	Jun 4, 2019
Grant date	Jun 4, 2019

Abstract

A wireless transceiver including: at least one antenna; a plurality of transmit and receive path components; an array of microphones; an acoustic spatial diagnostic circuit and a rule execution circuit. The plurality of components form transmit and receive paths coupled to the at least one antenna. The acoustic spatial diagnostic circuit couples to the array of microphones to successively sample an acoustic environment surrounding the wireless transceiver and to determine from each set of acoustic samples an acoustic spatial map of at least humans within the surrounding environment. The rule execution circuit couples to the spatial diagnostic circuit to execute an action proscribed by a selected rule when a related portion of the acoustic spatial map sampled by the spatial diagnostic circuit exhibits a correlation above a threshold amount with a spatial context condition associated with the selected rule.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A wireless transceiver for wireless communications on a wireless local area network (WLAN); and the wireless transceiver comprising:
at least one antenna;
a plurality of components coupled to one another to form transmit and receive paths coupled to the at least one antenna for processing wireless communications;
an array of microphones;
an acoustic spatial diagnostic circuit coupled to the array of microphones to successively sample an acoustic environment surrounding the wireless transceiver and to determine from each set of acoustic samples an acoustic spatial map of at least humans within the surrounding environment; and
a rule execution circuit coupled to the acoustic spatial diagnostic circuit to execute an action proscribed by a selected rule when a related portion of the acoustic spatial map sampled by the acoustic spatial diagnostic circuit exhibits a correlation above a threshold amount with a spatial context condition associated with the selected rule.

2. The wireless transceiver of claim 1 further comprising:
the acoustic spatial diagnostic circuit to determine locations of sound sources in the surrounding environment from the acoustic samples.

3. The wireless transceiver of claim 1 further comprising:
the acoustic spatial diagnostic circuit to determine locations of sound sources by correlating a known geometry of the array of microphones with the acoustic samples of sounds emanating from humans, animals, and objects in the surrounding environment.

4. The wireless transceiver of claim 1 wherein the acoustic spatial diagnostic circuit further comprises:
an acoustic identification circuit to identify sound sources by correlating authentication records containing acoustic profiles of specific humans, animals, and objects with the acoustic samples.

5. The wireless transceiver of claim 1 wherein each acoustic spatial map determined by the acoustic spatial diagnostic circuit includes a location and identity of humans within a surrounding structure.

6. The wireless transceiver of claim 1 , further comprising:
a training circuit to recognize spoken commands from a user and to generate a corresponding rule which combines a recognized command with a current acoustic spatial map output by the acoustic spatial diagnostic circuit.

7. The wireless transceiver of claim 1 further comprising:
a memory for storing rules each proscribing an action to perform, and a spatial context in which to perform the action; and
the rule execution circuit coupled to the memory to determine when a current acoustic spatial map from the acoustic spatial diagnostic circuit substantially matches the spatial context of one of the rules stored in the memory, and in the event of an affirmative determination to execute the action proscribed by the selected one of the rules.

8. The wireless transceiver of claim 1 , operative as one of a wireless access point (WAP) or a wireless station.

9. The wireless transceiver of claim 1 , further comprising:
a network interface to a remote server to offload a functionality of at least one of the acoustic spatial diagnostic circuit or the rule execution circuit to the remote server.

10. A method for operating a wireless transceiver for wireless communications on a wireless local area network (WLAN); and the method comprising the acts of:
providing at least one antenna;
providing a plurality of components coupled to one another to form transmit and receive paths coupled to the at least one antenna for processing wireless communications;
providing an array of microphones;
successively sampling an acoustic environment surrounding the wireless transceiver;
generating an acoustic spatial map of at least humans within the surrounding environment from each set of acoustic samples provided in the sampling act; and
executing an action proscribed by a selected rule when a related portion of the acoustic spatial map generated in the generating act exhibits a correlation above a threshold amount with a spatial context condition associated with the selected rule.

11. The method for operating a wireless transceiver of claim 10 , wherein the sampling and generating acts further comprise:
determining locations of sound sources in the surrounding environment from the acoustic samples.

12. The method for operating a wireless transceiver of claim 10 , wherein the sampling and generating acts further comprise:
determining locations of sound sources by correlating a known geometry of the array of microphones with the acoustic samples of sounds emanating from humans, animals, and objects in the surrounding environment.

13. The method for operating a wireless transceiver of claim 10 , wherein the sampling and generating acts further comprise:
identifying sound sources by correlating authentication records containing acoustic profiles of specific humans, animals, and objects with the acoustic samples.

14. The method for operating a wireless transceiver of claim 10 , wherein each acoustic spatial map generated in the generating act includes a location and identity of humans within a surrounding structure.

15. The method for operating a wireless transceiver of claim 10 , further comprising:
recognizing spoken commands from a user; and
generating a corresponding rule which combines a recognized command with a current acoustic spatial map generated in the generating act.

16. The method for operating a wireless transceiver of claim 10 , further comprising:
receiving feedback from a smart device manually switchable between an on state and an off state by a user, as to such a change in state; and
generating a corresponding rule which combines the received change in state of the smart device with a current acoustic spatial map generated in the generating act.

17. The method for operating a wireless transceiver of claim 10 , further comprising:
storing rules each proscribing an action to perform, and a spatial context in which to perform the action;
determining when a current acoustic spatial map substantially matches the spatial context of one of the rules stored in the memory; and
executing the action proscribed by the selected one of the rules, responsive to an affirmative determination of a substantial match in the determining act.

18. The method for operating a wireless transceiver of claim 10 , further comprising one of the acts of:
operating the wireless transceiver as a wireless access point (WAP); and
operating the wireless transceiver as a wireless station.

19. The method for operating a wireless transceiver of claim 10 , further comprising:
executing at least one of the generating or executing acts on a remote server communicatively coupled with the wireless transceiver.

20. A method for operating a wireless transceiver for wireless communications on a wireless local area network (WLAN) and a remote server communicatively coupled to the wireless transceiver; and the method comprising the acts of:
successively sampling an acoustic environment surrounding the wireless transceiver;
generating an acoustic spatial map of at least humans within the surrounding environment from each set of acoustic samples provided in the sampling act; and
executing an action proscribed by a selected rule when a related portion of the acoustic spatial map generated in the generating act exhibits a correlation above a threshold amount with a spatial context condition associated with the selected rule.

Assignees

• Quantenna Communications Inc

Inventors

• Bultan Aykut
• Bharath Narayanan
• Heidari Sam
• Dehghan Hossein

Classifications

• G10L15/063

  Training · CPC title

• H04W84/18

  Self-organising networks, e.g. ad-hoc networks or sensor networks · CPC title

• G01S15/06

  Systems determining the position data of a target · CPC title

• H04W84/12

  WLAN [Wireless Local Area Networks] · CPC title

• G01S15/04

  Systems determining presence of a target · CPC title