System and method for integrated emergency vehicle detection and localization

1 . An apparatus comprising a detector for detecting a siren that is emitted by a siren source located at a particular direction relative to a motor vehicle and a localizer in communication with said detector for estimating said particular direction, said motor vehicle comprising a microphone array having a plurality of microphones, each of which connects to said siren detector, said siren detector being configured to identify those frequencies at which a siren is active and said localizer being configured to estimate said particular direction based on those frequencies,

wherein the siren comprises recurring lines on a spectrogram, and

wherein the detector includes a line detector that searches for said recurring lines, or an edge detector that detects edges of lines of said lines in said spectrogram.

2 . The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the localizer is configured to localize the siren based at least in part on information indicative of an assembly of different line segments on a spectrogram that represents the siren, the line segments having been assembled in relation to each other.

3 . The apparatus of claim 1 , further comprising a dynamic system model, wherein the localizer is configured to localize the siren based at least in part on information indicative of different line segments that have been assembled in relation to each other using the dynamic system model, the line segments being representative of a time-varying spectrum of the siren as represented in a two-dimensional time-frequency space.

4 . The apparatus of claim 1 , further comprising a dynamic system model that models evolution of slopes of line segments over time, the line segments representing portions of a time-varying spectrum of the siren, wherein the localizer is configured to localize the siren based at least in part on information indicative of an assembly of the line segments in relation to each other as provided by the dynamic system model.

5 . The apparatus of claim 1 , further comprising a dynamic tonal model that specifies frequencies that are present in the siren for specified durations, wherein the localizer is configured to localize the siren at least in part on the basis of an assembly of line segments, each line segment representing a portion of a time-varying spectrum of the siren, the line segments having been assembled by the dynamic tonal model.

6 . The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the detector relies on a partly linear model.

7 . The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein, to carry out localization, the localizer localizes said siren based at least in part on power spectral density information between different microphones.

8 . The apparatus of claim 1 , further comprising said array of microphones, said array of microphones being connected to both said localizer and to said siren detector.

9 . The apparatus of claim 1 , further comprising said motor vehicle, said motor vehicle comprising a first array of microphones mounted thereon, said first array of microphones being connected to both said localizer and to said siren detector, said localizer and said siren detector both being mounted in said motor vehicle.

10 . The apparatus of claim 1 , further comprising a motor vehicle, said motor vehicle comprising first and second arrays of microphones mounted thereon, said first and second arrays being connected to both said localizer and to said siren detector, said localizer and said siren detector both being mounted in said motor vehicle.

11 . The apparatus of claim 1 , further comprising an array selector that is configured to select a first microphone array among from a set of microphone arrays and to cause said first microphone array to be connected to said localizer and to said siren detector.

12 . The apparatus of claim 1 , further comprising an array selector that is configured to carry out a coarse localization of said siren and to select a first microphone array among from a set of microphone arrays based on said coarse localization, wherein as a result of said selection, said first microphone array connects to said localizer and to said siren detector to carry out a fine localization of said siren using said first microphone array.

13 . The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein said localizer is configured to determine a direction-of-arrival of a siren based at least in part on variations in signal power across outputs of different microphones in a microphone array.

14 . The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein said localizer is configured to determine direction-of-arrival of a siren based at least in part on phase differences between outputs of different microphones in a microphone array.

15 . An apparatus comprising a detector for detecting a siren that is emitted by a siren source located at a particular direction relative to a motor vehicle and a localizer in communication with said detector for estimating said particular direction, said motor vehicle comprising a microphone array having a plurality of microphones, each of which connects to said siren detector, said siren detector being configured to identify those frequencies at which a siren is active and said localizer being configured to estimate said particular direction based on those frequencies, wherein the siren is represented by lines on the spectrogram and wherein the localizer is configured to localize the siren based on information indicative of the different directions of the lines on the spectrogram, or based at least in part on different directions of those lines that periodically recur on the spectrogram.

16 . An apparatus comprising a detector for detecting a siren that is emitted by a siren source located at a particular direction relative to a motor vehicle and a localizer in communication with said detector for estimating said particular direction, said motor vehicle comprising a microphone array having a plurality of microphones, each of which connects to said siren detector, said siren detector being configured to identify those frequencies at which a siren is active and said localizer being configured to estimate said particular direction based on those frequencies, wherein said localizer is configured to localize the siren at least in part on the basis of cross-phase spectral density information or cross-power spectral density information from different microphones.