Acoustic processing device and acoustic processing method

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9720068-B2
Application number	US-201514808444-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jul 24, 2015
Priority date	Aug 1, 2014
Publication date	Aug 1, 2017
Grant date	Aug 1, 2017

Abstract

An acoustic processing device includes: a sound pickup unit configured to record an acoustic signal; a motion detection unit configured to detect the motion of the device; a self-localization unit configured to estimate the position of the device based on the acoustic signal and the motion; and a use determination unit configured to determine whether or not to use the acoustic signal in a sound source localization unit detecting the position of a target sound source to be detected based on the intensity of a reference signal incoming from a reference sound source determined in advance.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. An acoustic processing device comprising:
a sound pickup unit configured to record an acoustic signal;
a motion detection unit configured to detect the motion of the device;
a self-localization unit configured to estimate the position of the device based on the acoustic signal and the motion; and
a use determination unit configured to determine whether or not to use the acoustic signal in a sound source localization unit detecting the position of a target sound source to be detected based on the intensity of a reference signal incoming from a reference sound source determined in advance.

2. The acoustic processing device according to claim 1 ,
wherein the sound source localization unit detects the position of the target sound source based on positional information indicating the position estimated by the self-localization unit, a second acoustic signal acquired from a second acoustic processing device, and second positional information acquired from the second acoustic processing device.

3. The acoustic processing device according to claim 2 ,
wherein the use determination unit transmits master device notification information indicating that the device is a master device to the second acoustic processing device in a wireless manner based on the time at which it is determined to use the acoustic signal and the positional information for sound source localization, and receives the second acoustic signal and the second positional information from the second acoustic processing device in a wireless manner.

4. The acoustic processing device according to claim 2 ,
wherein, when the use determination unit receives, from the second acoustic processing device, master device notification information indicating that the device is a master device, the acoustic signal and the positional information are transmitted to the second acoustic processing device in a wireless manner.

5. The acoustic processing device according to claim 1 ,
wherein the sound source localization unit updates the position of the target sound source so as to decrease the magnitude of the difference between a predicted value of the intensity of an acoustic signal estimated based on a predicted value of the position of the target sound source and a measured value of the intensity of an acoustic signal recorded by the sound pickup unit.

6. The acoustic processing device according to claim 5 ,
wherein the sound source localization unit updates the position of the target sound source so as to decrease the magnitude of the difference between a predicted value of the position of the target sound source and a predicted value of the position of the target sound source based on the second acoustic signal recorded in the second acoustic processing device.

7. The acoustic processing device according to claim 6 ,
wherein, in the update of the position of the target sound source, the sound source localization unit calculates the amount of update by multiplying a product of the total of the difference and a matrix obtained by normalizing a covariance matrix representing the distribution of the predicted value of the position by a positive coefficient equal to or less than 1, and updates the predicted value of the position based on the amount of update.

8. The acoustic processing device according to claim 1 ,
wherein the acoustic processing device is provided in a movable mobile object.

9. The acoustic processing device according to claim 8 ,
wherein the mobile object is a flying object.

10. The acoustic processing device according to claim 8 ,
wherein the mobile object is a robot.

11. An acoustic processing method in an acoustic processing device, the acoustic processing method comprising:
estimating the position of the device based on an acoustic signal recorded by a sound pickup unit and the motion of the acoustic processing device detected by a motion detection unit; and
determining whether or not to use the acoustic signal in a sound source localization unit detecting the position of a target sound source to be detected based on the intensity of a reference signal incoming from a reference sound source determined in advance.

Assignees

• Honda Motor Co Ltd

Inventors

• Nakamura Keisuke
• Nakadai Kazuhiro
• Kinoshita Tetsuo
• Takahashi Hideyuki
• Sinapayen Lana

Classifications

• G01S3/80 Primary

  using ultrasonic, sonic or infrasonic waves · CPC title