SOUND PROPAGATION AND PERCEPTION FOR AUTONOMOUS AGENTS IN DYNAMIC ENVIRONMENTS

• US 20170171684A1
• Filed: 07/16/2014
• Published: 06/15/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 07/16/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Trustees Of The University Of Pennsylvania (University of Pennsylvania)
• Original Assignee: Trustees Of The University Of Pennsylvania (University of Pennsylvania)
• Inventors: BADLER, Norman I., HUANG, Pengfei, KAPADLIA, Mubbasir
• Granted Patent: US 9,942,683 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 25/18 the extracted parameters being spectral information of each sub-band
• CPC Class Codes: H04S 2400/11 Positioning of individual sound objects, e.g. moving airplane, within a sound field H04S2420/13 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04S 2420/07 Synergistic effects of band splitting and sub-band processing
• CPC Class Codes: H04S 7/30 Control circuits for electronic adaptation of the sound field

Abstract

Methods and systems for sound propagation and perception for autonomous agents in dynamic environments are described. Adaptive discretization of continuous sound signals allows one to obtain a minimal, yet sufficient sound packet representation (SPR) for human-like perception, and a hierarchical clustering scheme to facilitate approximate perception. Planar sound propagation of discretized sound signals exhibit acoustic properties such as attenuation, reflection, refraction, and diffraction, as well as multiple convoluted sound signals. Agent-based sound perceptions using hierarchical clustering analysis that accommodates natural sound degradation due to audio distortion facilitate approximate human-like perception.

Claims

1. A method to integrate sound propagation and human-like perception into virtual creature simulations comprising:

discretizing a sound signal to obtain a sound packet representation packets for human-like perception; and

using hierarchical clustering analysis on the sound packet representation packets to model approximate human-like perception of the sound signal.

2. The method of claim 1, further wherein the discretizing is adaptively done in a frequency and time domain.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the sound signal is one of a plurality of sound signals from a database of short time Fourier transforms of sounds.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

propagating the sound packet representation packets to an virtual environment using a transmission line matrix method.

5. The method of claim 1, where the propagating of the sound is based on a quad-tree-based pre-computation.

6. A device comprising:

a processor; and

a memory coupled with the processor, the memory having stored thereon executable instructions that when executed by the processor cause the processor to effectuate operations comprising;

providing information to an agent that arrives at a ground location of the agent, wherein;

the information comprises an impulse response of a plurality of packets at different frequency bands, and

the agent is a virtual; and

computing similarity values using a dynamic time warping based on the plurality of packets and sounds in a hierarchical clustering analysis database.

7. The device of claim 6, wherein the information further comprises a spread factor that is computed for each of the plurality of packets which indicates a frequency and amplitude changes due to environment interactions and attenuation.

8. The device of claim 7, wherein the environment interactions include at least one of:

reflection, diffusion, absorption, and attenuation.

9. The device of claim 6, wherein the agent approximately localizes a sound source based on the plurality of packets it receives.

10. The device of claim 6, wherein the agent uses an attention model to facilitate sound identification in the presence of convoluted sounds, background noise, or sound novelty.

11. The device of claim 6, wherein the agent has sound perception that can be used as inputs to agent behavior controls to affect actions, motions, or decisions of the agent.

12. The device of claim 6, wherein the plurality of packets are degraded.

13. The device of claim 6, further comprising:

determining that the similarity values are above a similarity threshold; and

after determining that the similarity values are above the similarity threshold, providing an approximate perception based on a lowest common ancestor.

14. The device of claim 13, further comprising using the approximate perception as a control signal to trigger a behavior of the agent.

15. A method to integrate sound propagation and human-like perception into virtual creature simulations comprising:

providing information to an agent that arrives at a ground location of the agent, wherein the information includes at least one of;

an impulse response of a plurality of packets at different frequency bands, and

a spread factor that is computed for each of the plurality of packets which indicates a frequency and amplitude changes due to environment interactions and attenuation; and

computing similarity values using a dynamic time warping based on the plurality of packets and sounds in a hierarchical clustering analysis database.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the environment interactions include at least one of:

reflection, diffusion, absorption, and attenuation.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein the agent approximately localizes a sound source based on the plurality of packets it receives.

18. The method of claim 15, wherein the agent uses an attention model to facilitate sound identification in the presence of convoluted sounds, background noise, or sound novelty.

19. The method of claim 15, wherein the agent has sound perception that can be used as inputs to agent behavior controls to affect actions, motions, or decisions of the agent.

20. The method of claim 15, wherein the plurality of packets are degraded.