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Acoustic Sensing Systems and Their Applications in Smart Environments

A special issue of Sensors (ISSN 1424-8220). This special issue belongs to the section "Intelligent Sensors".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2022) | Viewed by 11642

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Grup de recerca en Tecnologies Mèdia (GTM), La Salle—Universitat Ramon Llull, 8022 Barcelona, Spain
Interests: speech processing; speech analysis and synthesis; voice production; expressive speech; Human-Computer Interaction; acoustic event detection; acoustic signal processing; machine listening; real-time noise monitoring; impact of noise events; real-life acoustic datasets; wireless acoustic sensor networks
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
GTM—Grup de recerca en Tecnologies Mèdia, La Salle—Universitat Ramon Llull, c/Quatre Camins, 30, 08022 Barcelona, Spain
Interests: acoustic event detection; real-time signal processing; adaptive signal processing; noise monitoring; noise annoyance; impact of noise events
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Recently, several sensing and monitoring technologies have been developed for indoor and outdoor applications that will improve people’s quality of life. The “smart city” paradigm is one major area of application of such technologies, as they may be used in the efficient management of public resources (e.g., water, waste, lighting), road traffic, and environmental pollution (e.g., CO, CO2, NO2). Ambient assisted living (AAL) is another noteworthy area of application, involving camera-based surveillance systems or daily-life activity monitoring for the elderly or people with special needs.

This Special Issue is focused on the recent advances in the development of acoustic sensing systems and their applications in smart environments, considering applications ranging from urban traffic noise monitoring to acoustic surveillance systems at home for pseudodependent people. All stages in the development of acoustic sensing systems will be considered, from their early design stage to their deployment and performance evaluation. Of special interest is the integration of acoustic sensing systems in information and management systems for applications such as (i) environmental noise monitoring to address the requirements of current legislation or regulatory bodies, such as the European Environmental Noise Directive or the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; (ii) acoustic surveillance to identify and localize hazardous situations (e.g., gunshots, explosions, shouts, car skids and crashes); (iii) the design and development of acoustic signal processing and machine listening/hearing techniques—including deep learning approaches—to detect, localize, classify or measure the acoustic scenes and their sound sources; (iv) the creation of acoustic datasets developed for specific acoustic sensing systems and applications; (iv) the design and deployment of wireless acoustic sensor networks (WASNs), as well as their hardware components (e.g., the low-cost acoustic sensors composing the network nodes, the collection and communication of the acoustic data) and their integration in the corresponding information management systems or central servers. These possible applications can be found indoors (e.g., in smart homes equipped with surveillance or behavioral tracking systems) or outdoors (e.g., traffic noise mapping, leisure noise mapping, biodiversity study).

Prof. Dr. Francesc Alías
Dr. Rosa Ma Alsina-Pagès
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sensors is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Indoor and outdoor acoustic sensing systems and their applications
  • Acoustic event detection
  • Acoustic scene analysis and classification
  • Sound source localization
  • Environmental noise monitoring
  • Acoustic behavioral tracking
  • Acoustic surveillance applications
  • Machine listening/hearing
  • Wireless acoustic sensor networks
  • Low-cost acoustic sensors
  • Acoustic datasets
  • Acoustic management systems

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

27 pages, 9243 KiB  
Article
Ultrasonic Sound Guide System with Eyeglass Device for the Visually Impaired
by Kevin Kim, Saea Kim and Anthony Choi
Sensors 2022, 22(8), 3077; https://doi.org/10.3390/s22083077 - 17 Apr 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 3445
Abstract
The ultrasonic sound guide system presents the audio broadcasting system based on the inaudible ultrasonic sound to assist the indoor and outdoor navigation of the visually impaired. The transmitters are placed at the point of interest to propagate the frequency modulated voice signal [...] Read more.
The ultrasonic sound guide system presents the audio broadcasting system based on the inaudible ultrasonic sound to assist the indoor and outdoor navigation of the visually impaired. The transmitters are placed at the point of interest to propagate the frequency modulated voice signal in ultrasonic sound range. The dual channel receiver device is carried by the visually impaired person in the form of eyeglasses to receive the ultrasonic sound for the voice signal via demodulation. Since the ultrasonic sound demonstrates the acoustic properties, the velocity, directivity, attenuation, and superposition of ultrasonic sound provide the acoustic clue to the user for localizing the multiple transmitter positions by binaural localization capability. The visually impaired hear the designated voice signal and follow the signal attributions to arrive at the specific location. Due to the low microphone gain from side addressing, the time delay between the receiver channels demonstrates the high variance and high bias in end directions. However, the perception experiment shows the further prediction accuracy in end directions as compared to the center direction outcomes. The overall evaluations show the precise directional prediction for narrow- and wide-angle situations. The ultrasonic sound guide system is a useful device to localize places in the near field without touching braille. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Acoustic Sensing Systems and Their Applications in Smart Environments)
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16 pages, 1055 KiB  
Article
Acoustic Dual-Function Communication and Echo-Location in Inaudible Band
by Gabriele Allegro, Alessio Fascista and Angelo Coluccia
Sensors 2022, 22(3), 1284; https://doi.org/10.3390/s22031284 - 08 Feb 2022
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2440
Abstract
Acoustic communications are experiencing renewed interest as alternative solutions to traditional RF communications, not only in RF-denied environments (such as underwater) but also in areas where the electromagnetic (EM) spectrum is heavily shared among several wireless systems. By introducing additional dedicated channels, independent [...] Read more.
Acoustic communications are experiencing renewed interest as alternative solutions to traditional RF communications, not only in RF-denied environments (such as underwater) but also in areas where the electromagnetic (EM) spectrum is heavily shared among several wireless systems. By introducing additional dedicated channels, independent from the EM ones, acoustic systems can be used to ensure the continuity of some critical services such as communication, localization, detection, and sensing. In this paper, we design and implement a novel acoustic system that uses only low-cost off-the-shelf hardware and the transmission of a single, suitably designed signal in the inaudible band (18–22 kHz) to perform integrated sensing (ranging) and communication. The experimental testbed consists of a common home speaker transmitting acoustic signals to a smartphone, which receives them through the integrated microphone, and of an additional receiver exploiting the same signals to estimate distance information from a physical obstacle in the environment. The performance of the proposed dual-function system in terms of noise, data rate, and accuracy in distance estimation is experimentally evaluated in a real operational environment. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Acoustic Sensing Systems and Their Applications in Smart Environments)
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16 pages, 9295 KiB  
Article
Positioning Combination Method of USBL Using Four-Element Stereo Array
by Wei Wang, Min Zhu and Bo Yang
Sensors 2021, 21(22), 7722; https://doi.org/10.3390/s21227722 - 20 Nov 2021
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1789
Abstract
In the present article, an ultra-short baseline (USBL) combined location method based on three four-element stereo arrays is proposed. In order to solve the problem of the poor positioning effect of acoustic positioning under a high incident angle of signal, two kinds of [...] Read more.
In the present article, an ultra-short baseline (USBL) combined location method based on three four-element stereo arrays is proposed. In order to solve the problem of the poor positioning effect of acoustic positioning under a high incident angle of signal, two kinds of four-element stereo arrays are designed, and the localization approach of the new array is given. At the same time, for the regular triangular pyramid array, a virtual array element is proposed to construct a planar cross array to improve the poor positioning effect of the regular triangular pyramid array at a low incident angle. This paper analyzes the positioning performance of three arrays. Combined with the traditional cross-planar array localization method, a set of positioning strategies to switch the two localization methods under different incident angles were designed. The switching thresholds of the two methods were analyzed by simulation. Simulation results show that the new arrays can locate stably at different incident angles and improve the overall positioning performance of the array. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Acoustic Sensing Systems and Their Applications in Smart Environments)
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19 pages, 21950 KiB  
Article
The Acoustic System of the Fendouzhe HOV
by Yeyao Liu, Jingfeng Xue, Bo Yang, Min Zhu, Weizhen Guo, Feng Pan, Cong Ye, Wei Wang, Tao Liang, Xinguo Li and Linyuan Zhang
Sensors 2021, 21(22), 7478; https://doi.org/10.3390/s21227478 - 10 Nov 2021
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2345
Abstract
Due to the strong absorption and attenuation of electromagnetic waves by water, radio communications and global positioning systems are lacking in the deep-sea environment. Therefore, underwater long-distance communications, positioning, detection and other functions depend on acoustic technology. In order to realize the above [...] Read more.
Due to the strong absorption and attenuation of electromagnetic waves by water, radio communications and global positioning systems are lacking in the deep-sea environment. Therefore, underwater long-distance communications, positioning, detection and other functions depend on acoustic technology. In order to realize the above functions, the acoustic system of the Fendouzhe human occupied vehicle (HOV) is composed of eight kinds of sonars and sensors, which is one of the core systems of manned submersible. Based on the Jiaolong/Shenhai Yongshi HOVs, the acoustic system of the Fendouzhe HOV has been developed. Compared with the previous technology, there are many technical improvements and innovations: 10,000-m underwater acoustic communication, 10,000-m underwater acoustic positioning, multi-beam forward-looking imaging sonar, an integrated navigation system, etc. This study introduces the structure of the acoustic system of the Fendouzhe HOV and the technical improvements compared with the Jiaolong/Shenhai Yongshi HOVs. The results of the acoustic system are illustrated by the 10,000-m sea trails in the Mariana Trench from October to December 2020. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Acoustic Sensing Systems and Their Applications in Smart Environments)
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