Granted Patent B2

US 12,571,898 · App. 18/055,772 · Granted Mar 10, 2026

Inventors: Ziqi Wang (San Diego, CA); Mani Srivastava (Sherman Oaks, CA); Akash Deep Singh (Austin, TX); Luis Garcia (Midvale, UT); Zhe Chen (Singapore, SG); Jun Luo (Singapore, SG)

Assignees: The Regents of the University of California; Nanyang Technological University

G01S13/0209G01S7/2813G01S7/2923G01S7/414G01S13/888

Abstract

Claims (51)

1 . A device for generating an audio signal based on audio source ranging using ultrawideband signals, the device comprising:

a transmitter circuitry;

a receiver circuitry;

memory; and

a processor, the processor configured to:

generate a radio signal comprising an ultra-wideband Gaussian pulse modulated on a radio-frequency carrier and transmit the radio frequency signal using the transmitter circuitry;

receive one or more backscattered signals at the receiver circuitry;

demodulate the one or more backscattered signals to generate one or more baseband signals, wherein generating one or more baseband signals comprises generating an in-phase component and a quadrature component, and wherein the set of frames is generated based on a highest spectrum concentration component, the component selected from a list of the in-phase component and the quadrature component;

generate a set of data frames based on the one or more baseband signals, wherein a data frame of the set of data frames is a time series generated based on backscattered signal data collected during a time interval, wherein the time interval is defined as a period from a transmission of the radio signal to a receipt of a last backscattered signal;

determine one or more distance bins associated with the one or more backscattered signals based on the set of data frames;

generate a slice based on a selected distance bin, the selected distance bin selected from among the determined one or more distance bins, wherein the slice includes a selected portion of the data from the set of frames, the portion of the data selected corresponds to the selected distance bin, the data defining a slice waveform; and

generate a sound waveform based on the generated slice.

2 . The device of claim 1 , wherein generating one or more baseband signals comprises generating an in-phase component and a quadrature component.

3 . The device of claim 1 , wherein the generated sound waveform has an amplitude proportional to an amplitude of the slice waveform associated with the generated slice.

4 . The device of claim 1 , wherein determining one or more distances associated with the one or more backscattered signals based on the set of frames comprises determining a time of flight for each of the one or more backscattered signals.

5 . The device of claim 1 , wherein the radio signal is an ultrawideband signal.

6 . The device of claim 1 , wherein the radio signal is an impulse radio ultrawideband signal.

7 . The device of claim 1 , wherein the transmitter circuitry is configured to transmit signals using an impulse radio ultra-wideband.

8 . The device of claim 1 , wherein the transmitter circuitry is configured to transmit a discontinuous wireless pulse signal.

9 . The device of claim 1 , wherein the transmitter circuitry is configured to use a sub 10 GHz range.

10 . The device of claim 1 , wherein the set of frames is a two-dimensional data structure.

11 . The device of claim 1 , wherein the slice is a one-dimensional data structure.

12 . The device of claim 1 , wherein generating a sound waveform based on the slice comprises generating a waveform having an amplitude proportional to the amplitude of a waveform described by data included in the slice.

13 . The device of claim 1 , wherein generating a sound waveform based on the slice comprises generating a waveform having an amplitude proportional to an amplitude of an in-phase part of the slice waveform.

14 . The device of claim 1 , wherein generating a sound waveform based on the slice comprises generating a waveform having an amplitude proportional to an amplitude of a quadrature part of the slice waveform.

15 . The device of claim 1 , wherein generating a sound waveform based on the slice comprises generating a waveform having an amplitude proportional to the amplitude of a waveform generated based on filtering the slice.

16 . The device of claim 1 , wherein the processor is further configured to perform a phase noise correction on the set of data frames, wherein performing the phase noise correction comprises:

generating a reference slice based on the set of data frames, the reference slice corresponding to a first distance bin, wherein the first distance bin is a closest distance bin to the transmitter circuitry;

determining a standard reference phase based on the reference slice; and

for each data frame of the set of data frames:

determining a phase difference between a data frame first distance bin and the determined standard reference phase; and

offsetting a phase error for all samples in the data frame based on the determined phase difference.

17 . The device of claim 16 , wherein calculating a standard reference phase based on the reference slice comprises calculating a mean phase of the reference slice.

18 . The device of claim 16 , wherein offsetting the phase error for all samples in the data frame comprises multiplying all samples in the data frame by e jΔφ , where e is Euler's number, j is a constant, and jΔφ is the determined phase difference.

19 . The device of claim 1 , wherein the processor is further configured to perform a static clutter suppression on the set of data frames, wherein performing the static clutter suppression comprises:

applying a Butterworth finite impulse response filter (FIR) on each distance bin, each distance bin corresponding to a distance bin portion of data from the set of data frames.

20 . The device of claim 19 , wherein the FIR is applied with a stopping frequency at 20 Hz.

21 . The device of claim 19 , wherein the FIR is applied with a passing frequency at 70 Hz.

22 . The device of claim 19 , wherein the FIR is applied using a stop-band attenuation set at −80 dB.

23 . The device of claim 19 , wherein performing static clutter suppression further comprises applying a high-pass filter.

24 . The device of claim 1 , wherein the processor is further configured to perform a vibrating activity localization on the set of data frames, wherein performing the vibrating activity localization comprises:

performing a discrete Fourier transform over each distance bin to generate a spectrum for each distance bin, each distance bin corresponding to a distance bin portion of data from the set of data frames;

generating a Herfindahl-Hirschman index for each distance bin based on the generated spectrums; and

selecting those distance bins which correspond to Herfindahl-Hirschman indices exceeding a threshold value.

25 . The device of claim 1 , wherein the processor is further configured to perform a denoising on the generated slice, wherein the denoising comprises:

applying spectral subtraction on the generated slice; and

applying a normalization on an output of the spectral subtraction.

26 . The device of claim 25 , wherein the applied spectral subtraction is an algorithm selected from the list of linear spectral subtraction, non-linear spectral subtraction, and multi-band spectral subtraction.

27 . The device of claim 1 , wherein the processor is further configured to perform audio recovery on the generated slice, wherein the audio recovery comprises:

outputting an audio file based on the generated slice.

28 . The device of claim 1 , wherein each frame of the set of frames is associated with the transmission of an RF probe pulse.

Assignments (3)

Continuity (2)

References Cited (120)