Speech articulator and user gesture measurements using micropower, interferometric EM-sensors

摘要

Very low power, GHz frequency radar-like sensors can measure a variety of motions produced by a human user of machine interface devices. These data can be obtained at a distance and can measure hidden structures. Measurements range from acoustic induced 10-micron amplitude vibrations of vocal tract tissues, to few centimeter human speech articulator motions, to meter-class motions of the head, hands, or entire body. These EM sensors measure fringe motions as reflected EM waves are mixed with a local (homodyne) reference wave. These data, when processed using models of the system being measured provide real time states of interface positions or other targets vs. time. An example is speech articulator positions vs. time in the users body. This information appears to be useful for a surprisingly wide range of applications ranging from speech coding synthesis and recognition, speaker or object identification, noise cancellation, hand or head motions for cursor direction, and other applications.