Auditory display of knee-joint vibration signals

Sounds generated due to rubbing of knee-joint surfaces may lead to a potential tool for noninvasive assessment of articular cartilage degeneration. In the work reported in the present paper, an attempt is made to perform computer-assisted auscultation of knee joints by auditory display (AD) of vibration signals (also known as vibroarthrographic or VAG signals) emitted during active movement of the leg. Two types of AD methods are considered: audification and sonification. In audification, the VAG signals are scaled in time and frequency using a time-frequency distribution to facilitate aural analysis. In sonification, the instantaneous mean frequency and envelope of the VAG signals are derived and used to synthesize sounds that are expected to facilitate more accurate diagnosis than the original signals by improving their aural quality. Auditory classification experiments were performed by two orthopedic surgeons with 37 VAG signals including 19 normal and 18 abnormal cases. Sensitivity values (correct detection of abnormality) of 31%, 44%, and 83%, and overall classification accuracies of 53%, 40%, and 57% were obtained with the direct playback, audification, and sonification methods, respectively. The corresponding d' scores were estimated to be 1.10. -0.36, and 0.55. The high sensitivity of the sonification method indicates that the technique could lead to improved detection of knee-joint abnormalities; however, additional work is required to improve its specificity and achieve better overall performance.     

声纳方程的瞬态形式讨论

本文提出用瞬态信号的能谱级代替稳态信号的声强级来定义声纳参数，并以短柱声散射为例，运用数值模拟方法，验证用能谱级定义声纳参数，声纳方程是比较有效的，这为应用声纳方程处理瞬态声信号从而获得目标强度提供了一种有效可行的方法。     

Auditory analysis of the periodicity of sound and its envelope: A mathematical model

A mathematical model of the auditory analysis of periodicity of sound and its envelope is proposed. The model consists of a sequence of mathematical transformations that describe the signal processing stages. The following parameters and properties of the auditory system are taken into account: the crude analysis of the input acoustic signal accurate to the width of the aural critical band; the frequency dependence of the width of the aural critical band; the spectrum of the input signal analysis by a set of 3500 filters closely spaced in frequency; the absolute audibility thresholds at a given frequency; the time-domain analysis of both the output signals of each filter and the envelope profile with the help of the periodicity function; the pulsed activity of auditory neurons; the ability of the auditory system to memorize the spectral-time images of the signal and its individual parameters; the ability of the auditory system to form the perception of the loudness of sound, to memorize and compare the loudness of sound at different time moments, and to conclude which of them is higher or lower or whether they are equal accurate to a certain threshold; the dependence of the critical modulation bandwidth on the modulation frequency; and the dependence of the audibility thresholds of amplitude modulation on the modulation frequency. By an example of processing amplitude-modulated signals with various carrier-to-envelope frequency ratios, the model is shown to give a satisfactory explanation of their pitch and auditory estimate of the envelope period.     

Trading detection for resolution in active sonar receivers

This paper proposes an active sonar receivers that offers a smooth trade-off between detection and resolution. A matched filter is the optimal detector of known signals in white Gaussian noise but may fail to resolve the targets if the time separation of targets is less than the mainlobe width of the autocorrelation function of the transmitted signal. An inverse filter achieves optimal resolution performance for multiple targets in the absence of noise, but amplifies the noise outside the signal bandwidth in a manner that makes it impractical in many realistic scenarios. The proposed active sonar receiver, the variable resolution and detection receiver (VRDR) combines the matched and inverse filter properties to achieve a smooth trade-off between detection and resolution. Simulated receiver operating characteristics demonstrate that for a range of dipole sonar targets, the performance of the VRDR is superior to the matched and inverse filter, as well as another previously proposed bandlimited inverse filter.     

Perception-based automatic classification of impulsive-source active sonar echoes

Impulsive-source active sonar systems are often plagued by false alarm echoes resulting from the presence of naturally occurring clutter objects in the environment. Sonar performance could be improved by a technique for discriminating between echoes from true targets and echoes from clutter. Motivated by anecdotal evidence that target echoes sound very different than clutter echoes when auditioned by a human operator, this paper describes the implementation of an automatic classifier for impulsive-source active sonar echoes that is based on perceptual signal features that have been previously identified in the musical acoustics literature as underlying timbre. Perceptual signal features found in this paper to be particularly useful to the problem of active sonar classification include: the centroid and peak value of the perceptual loudness function, as well as several features based on subband attack and decay times. This paper uses subsets of these perceptual signal features to train and test an automatic classifier capable of discriminating between target and clutter echoes with an equal error rate of roughly 10%; the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve corresponding to this classifier is found to be 0.975.     

Auditory scene analysis by echolocation in bats.

Echolocating bats transmit ultrasonic vocalizations and use information contained in the reflected sounds to analyze the auditory scene. Auditory scene analysis, a phenomenon that applies broadly to all hearing vertebrates, involves the grouping and segregation of sounds to perceptually organize information about auditory objects. The perceptual organization of sound is influenced by the spectral and temporal characteristics of acoustic signals. In the case of the echolocating bat, its active control over the timing, duration, intensity, and bandwidth of sonar transmissions directly impacts its perception of the auditory objects that comprise the scene. Here, data are presented from perceptual experiments, laboratory insect capture studies, and field recordings of sonar behavior of different bat species, to illustrate principles of importance to auditory scene analysis by echolocation in bats. In the perceptual experiments, FM bats (Eptesicus fuscus) learned to discriminate between systematic and random delay sequences in echo playback sets. The results of these experiments demonstrate that the FM bat can assemble information about echo delay changes over time, a requirement for the analysis of a dynamic auditory scene. Laboratory insect capture experiments examined the vocal production patterns of flying E. fuscus taking tethered insects in a large room. In each trial, the bats consistently produced echolocation signal groups with a relatively stable repetition rate (within 5%). Similar temporal patterning of sonar vocalizations was also observed in the field recordings from E. fuscus, thus suggesting the importance of temporal control of vocal production for perceptually guided behavior. It is hypothesized that a stable sonar signal production rate facilitates the perceptual organization of echoes arriving from objects at different directions and distances as the bat flies through a dynamic auditory scene. Field recordings of E. fuscus, Noctilio albiventris, N. leporinus, Pippistrellus pippistrellus, and Cormura brevirostris revealed that spectral adjustments in sonar signals may also be important to permit tracking of echoes in a complex auditory scene.     

Subcritical scattering from buried elastic shells

Buried objects have been largely undetectable by traditional high-frequency sonars due to their insignificant bottom penetration. Further, even a high grazing angle sonar approach is vastly limited by the coverage rate dictated by the finite water depth, making the detection and classification of buried objects using low frequency, subcritical sonar an interesting alternative. On the other hand, such a concept would require classification clues different from the traditional high-resolution imaging and shadows to maintain low false alarm rates. A potential alternative, even for buried targets, is classification based on the acoustic signatures of man-made elastic targets. However, the elastic responses of buried and proud targets are significantly different. The objective of this work is to identify, analyze, and explain some of the effects of the sediment and the proximity of the seabed interface on the scattering of sound from completely and partially buried elastic shells. The analysis was performed using focused array processing of data from the GOATS98 experiment carried out jointly by MIT and SACLANTCEN, and a new hybrid modeling capability combining a virtual source-or wave-field superposition-approach with an exact spectral integral representation of the Green's functions for a stratified ocean waveguide, incorporating all multiple scattering between the object and the seabed. Among the principal results is the demonstration of the significant role of structural circumferential waves in converting incident, evanescent waves into backscattered body waves, emanating to the receivers at supercritical grazing angles, in effect making the target appear closer to the sonar than predicted by traditional ray theory.     

Comparison between visual and passive acoustic detection of finless porpoises in the Yangtze River, China

Recently, sonar signals and other sounds produced by cetaceans have been used for acoustic detection of individuals and groups in the wild. However, the detection probability ascertained by concomitant visual survey has not been demonstrated extensively. The finless porpoises (Neophocaena phocaenoides) have narrow band and high-frequency sonar signals, which are distinctive from background noises. Underwater sound monitoring with hydrophones (B&K8103) placed along the sides of a research vessel, concurrent with visual observations was conducted in the Yangtze River from Wuhan to Poyang Lake in 1998 in China. The peak to peak detection threshold was set at 133 dB re 1 ,EPa. With this threshold level, porpoises could be detected reliably within 300 m of the hydrophone. In a total of 774-km cruise, 588 finless porpoises were sighted by visual observation and 44 ,864 ultrasonic pulses were recorded by the acoustical observation system. The acoustic monitoring system could detect the presence of the finless porpoises 82% of the time. A false alarm in the system occurred with a frequency of 0.9%. The high-frequency acoustical observation is suggested as an effective method for field surveys of small cetaceans, which produce high-frequency sonar signals.     

交叉验证多路径匹配追踪水声矢量阵稀疏方位估计

水下运动目标的高分辨DOA估计和目标的左右舷分辨问题一直是水声阵列信号处理中的一个核心问题。矢量阵相比于声压阵具有天然的左右舷分辨能力和更高的处理增益,近年来得到了广泛关注。Capon等一些传统高分辨处理方法存在不能解相干源、需要多快拍处理以及对阵列流行误差敏感等多种问题。针对水声阵列信号处理领域面临的以上问题,利用声呐工作场景中空间目标的稀疏性,本文提出了一种基于交叉验证技术的多路径匹配追踪（Multiplepath Matching Pursuit with Cross Validation,CV-MMP）声矢量阵稀疏DOA估计算法。该算法采用交叉验证技术可以在未知场景中目标个数的条件下实现稀疏DOA的估计,相比于常规的声矢量阵Capon算法而言,可以在小快拍数甚至单快拍数条件下实现多目标的稀疏DOA估计以及高分辨能力。仿真和海试试验数据处理验证了提出的算法的有效性。      

Determination of spatial position of multiple targets by ultrasonic binaural method

The binaural technique used in ultrasonic sonars has a higher performance speed in comparison with a mechanically scanned ultrasonic beam, however, in presence of multiple targets meets a very serious ambiguity problem. In this case the number of targets detected exceeds the actual number of targets, e.g., there are additional non-existing targets found. Objective of this research was development of a simulation tool enabling to model multi-channel sonar in the environment with multiple targets of arbitrary geometry and development of robust signal processing procedures, suitable for detection of multiple targets from the data collected using the binaural method. The developed software enables to simulate operation of multi-channel sonar in an environment with multiple reflectors and predict a time history of the reflected signals. The novel algorithm for separation of real targets from the virtual ones in presence of multiple targets has been developed. Performance of the proposed algorithm was investigated both in the simulated and a real environment. The results obtained indicate a significant improvement of the sonar performance.