Wearable voice-induced vibration or silent gesture sensor
Disclosed herein are wearable devices, their configurations, and methods of operation that use self-mixing interferometry signals of a self-mixing interferometry sensor to recognize user inputs. The user inputs may include voiced commands or silent gesture commands. The devices may be wearable on the user's head, with the self-mixing interferometry sensor configured to direct a beam of light toward a location on the user's head. Skin deformations or vibrations at the location may be caused by the user's speech or the user's silent gestures and recognized using the self-mixing interferometry signal. The self-mixing interferometry signals may be used for bioauthentication and/or audio conditioning of received sound or voice inputs to a microphone.
1. A wearable device, comprising:
a frame configured to attach the wearable device to a user;
a self-mixing interferometry sensor mounted to the frame and configured to emit a beam of light; and
a command interpreter configured to receive a self-mixing interferometry signal from the self-mixing interferometry sensor, wherein:
the frame is configured to direct the beam of light toward a head of the user;
the self-mixing interferometry signal includes skin deformation information; and
the command interpreter is configured to identify a silent gesture input of the user, the silent gesture input including inaudible movements of the user encoded in the skin deformation information.
2. The wearable device of claim 1 , wherein the skin deformation information includes skin vibration information.
3. The wearable device of claim 2 , wherein the wearable device is an earbud further comprising:
a microphone; and
an in-ear speaker, wherein:
the self-mixing interferometry sensor directs the beam of light toward a location in an ear of the user; and
the command interpreter identifies a voiced command of the user using the skin vibration information.
4. The wearable device of claim 2 , wherein:
the wearable device is an eyeglasses set;
the self-mixing interferometry sensor is mounted to an arm of the eyeglasses set and directs the beam of light toward a location proximate to a temporal bone of the user; and
the command interpreter identifies a voiced command of the user based on the skin vibration information.
5. The wearable device of claim 1 , wherein the skin deformation information includes temporomandibular joint movement information.
6. The wearable device of claim 5 , wherein:
the wearable device is a headphone;
the self-mixing interferometry sensor directs the beam of light toward a location on the head of the user proximate to a temporomandibular joint of the user; and
the command interpreter identifies the temporomandibular joint movement information as the silent gesture input of the user.
7. The wearable device of claim 5 , wherein:
the wearable device is a visual display headset;
the self-mixing interferometry sensor is a first self-mixing interferometry sensor;
the beam of light is a first beam of light;
the self-mixing interferometry signal is a first self-mixing interferometry signal;
the first self-mixing interferometry sensor directs the first beam of light toward a first location on the head of the user proximate to a temporomandibular joint of the user;
the command interpreter identifies the temporomandibular joint movement information as the silent gesture input of the user;
the wearable device comprises a second self-mixing interferometry sensor that directs a second beam of light toward a second location on the head of the user proximate to a parietal bone; and
the command interpreter is further configured to receive a second self-mixing interferometry signal from the second self-mixing interferometry sensor, wherein:
the second self-mixing interferometry signal includes skin vibration information; and
the command interpreter is further configured to identify a voiced command encoded in the skin vibration information.
8. The wearable device of claim 1 , wherein:
the beam of light is a laser light beam emitted by a laser diode;
a bias current of the laser diode is modulated with a sine wave; and
the command interpreter is configured to use a time domain I/Q analysis to identify the silent gesture input encoded in the skin deformation information.
9. The wearable device of claim 1 , wherein:
the beam of light is a laser light emitted by a laser diode;
a bias current of the laser diode is modulated with a triangle wave; and
the command interpreter is configured to use a spectrum analysis to identify the silent gesture input encoded in the skin deformation information.
10. A device, comprising:
a head-mountable frame configured to be worn by a user;
a self-mixing interferometry sensor mounted to the head-mountable frame and configured to emit a beam of light toward a location on a head of the user;
a microphone;
a command interpreter configured to receive an output of the microphone and recognize a voiced command of the user; and
a bioauthentication circuit configured to:
receive a self-mixing interferometry signal of the self-mixing interferometry sensor, the self-mixing interferometry signal including skin deformation information;
detect, using at least the skin deformation information, that the user was speaking during a time interval of the output of the microphone; and
authenticate the voiced command in accordance with detecting that the user was speaking during the time interval.
11. The device of claim 10 , wherein authentication of the voiced command further includes detecting a correlation of the voiced command of the user with a voice pattern detected in the skin deformation information.
12. The device of claim 10 , wherein the device is an earbud further comprising:
an in-ear speaker; and
a radio transmitter, wherein the device transmits the voiced command using the radio transmitter upon authentication.
13. The device of claim 10 , wherein:
the device is a headphone;
the location on the head of the user is proximate to at least one of a temporal bone or a parietal bone; and
the device implements the voiced command upon authentication.
14. The device of claim 10 , wherein:
the beam of light is a laser light beam emitted by a laser diode;
the bioauthentication circuit is further configured to authenticate the voiced command using at least one of:
a time domain I/Q analysis of the self-mixing interferometry signal when a sine wave modulation is applied to a bias current of the laser diode; and
a spectrum analysis of the self-mixing interferometry signal when a triangle wave modulation is applied to the bias current of the laser diode.
15. A device, comprising:
a head-mountable frame configured to be worn by a user;
a self-mixing interferometry sensor mounted to the head-mountable frame and configured to emit a beam of light toward skin of the user;
a microphone configured to produce an audio signal; and
an audio conditioning circuit configured to:
receive a self-mixing interferometry signal of the self-mixing interferometry sensor, the self-mixing interferometry signal including skin vibration information;
detect time intervals of speech of the user using the skin vibration information; and
modify the audio signal by suppressing background noise during a time segment not in the time intervals of speech of the user.
16. The device of claim 15 , wherein the device is an earbud further comprising:
an in-ear speaker; and
a radio transmitter, wherein the device transmits the audio signal during the time intervals of speech of the user.
17. The device of claim 15 , wherein:
the device is a headphone further comprising a radio transmitter;
the self-mixing interferometry sensor directs the beam of light toward a location on a head of the user proximate to at least one of a temporal bone or a parietal bone; and
the device transmits the audio signal during the time intervals of speech of the user.
18. The device of claim 15 , wherein:
the beam of light is a laser light beam emitted by a laser diode;
the audio conditioning circuit is further configured to modify the audio signal using at least one of:
a time domain I/Q analysis of the self-mixing interferometry signal when a sine wave modulation is applied to a bias current of the laser diode, and
a spectrum analysis of the self-mixing interferometry signal when a triangle wave modulation is applied to the bias current of the laser diode.
19. The wearable device of claim 1 , wherein the command interpreter is further configured to match the silent gesture input with a stored voice command of the user.
20. The wearable device of claim 1 , wherein the inaudible movements of the user correspond to a mouth of the user having a shape approximating an expected shape for vocalized words.