Texas Instruments Corporation

Srinath Mathur Ramaswamy

Baher S Haroun

Brian Paul Ginsburg

Arup Polley

Vijay B Rentala

Eunyoung Seok

Lei Ding

Anand Ganesh Dabak

Sriram Narayanan

Ajit Sharma

Clive D Bittlestone

David Patrick Magee

Yuming Zhu

Gangadhar Burra

Anand Gopalan

Seung Bae Lee

Rahmi Hezar

Jing-Fei Ren

Amardeep Sathyanarayana

Joyce Kwong

Hun Seok Kim

Sai Zhang

Jagadeesh Krishnan

Pourya Assem

Russell Melvin Rosenquist

Django Trombley

Wai Lee

Franck Seigneret

Chiraag Juvekar

Swaminathan Sankaran

Nirmal Chindhu Warke

Rajarshi Mukhopadhyay

Vaibhav Garg

Bradley Allen Kramer

Gerd Schuppener

Hassan Omar Ali

Stephen Keith Heinrich-Barna

Domingo G Garcia

Rajan Narasimha

Mehmet T Ozgun

Luis Eduardo Ossa

Phillip Nadeau

Zahir Ibrahim Parkar

Miaad Aliroteh

Luis Fernando Reynoso Covarrubias

Henry Litzmann Edwards

Marco Corsi

Chih-Ming Hung

Dok Won Lee

Indu Prathapan

Srinivas Lingam

Charles Kasimer Sestok, Iv

Sundarrajan Rangachari

Srikanth Krishnan

Terry Lee Sculley

Vijay Kumar Reddy

Venkatesh Srinivasan

Ranjit Kumar Dash

Stanley Jay Goldman

Jo Bito

Alan Henry Leek

Vijaya Bhaskar Rentala

James N Murdock

Sujeet Milind Patole

Sankar Prasad Debnath

Steven Loveless

Halil Kiper

Michael John Zroka

Anjana Ghosh

Wen Li

Ting Li

Brian Burk

Ryan Michael Brown

Diganta Baishya

Eungyoung Seok

A computer-readable storage device stores machine instructions which, when executed by one or more central processing unit (CPU) cores, causes the one or more CPU cores to use a first ultrasonic transducer and a second ultrasonic transducer to measure fluid flow using a current measurement frequency and to perform a temperature calibration process. The temperature calibration process includes the sequentially generation of a plurality of electrical signals for the first ultrasonic transducer, the generated electrical signals each having a different frequency. For each frequency, the temperature calibration process includes the measurement of an amplitude of a signal from the second ultrasonic transducer. Based on the measured amplitudes of the signals from the second ultrasonic transducer, the temperature calibration process includes the determination of a new measurement frequency. The first and second ultrasonic transducers are used to measure fluid flow using the new measurement frequency.

Dynamic temperature calibration of ultrasonic transducers

Ultrasonic ranging systems and methods that use coding to distinguish emitted bursts from multiple transducers temporally stagger the bursts emitted from the transducers. The stagger delay between bursts from different transducers in a sensing frame can be randomized between different sensing frames to prevent blind zones. The stagger delay can be relatively small (e.g., between 3 ms and 10 ms) as compared to delays required between bursts in a single-tone ranging system (which would need to be more on the order of between 30 ms and 40 ms, depending on the maximum detecting range of the ranging system). The coding of bursts can be selected to utilize the entire bandwidth of the bursting transducer so as to preserve short-range sensitivity over transducer ringing. Schemes in which some transducers in a system only listen for bursts from other transducers but do not themselves burst within a sensing frame are also described.

Coded ultrasonic sensing with staggered bursts

A sensor chip includes a sensor pixel. The sensor pixel includes an avalanche photodetector. A circuit is adjacent to the avalanche photodetector. The circuit is coupled to the avalanche photodetector. An isolation structure at least partially encloses the circuit and is between the avalanche photodetector and the circuit.

Photodiode integrated with circuit

A transducer system with a transducer and circuitry for applying a waveform to excite the transducer during an excitation period. The applying circuitry also comprises circuitry for changing a frequency of the waveform during the excitation period.

Ultrasonic transducer system and method using broadband system responses

Ultrasonic audio processing circuitry and a method useful in ultrasonic presence detection. An ultrasonic burst generator produces an ultrasonic burst signal at one or more ultrasonic frequencies, and an equalizer equalizes that ultrasonic burst signal according to frequency response characteristics of the speaker and microphone at those ultrasonic frequencies. Driver circuitry drives a speaker with the ultrasonic burst signal, which may be combined with an audible audio signal. An ultrasonic separation filter separates an ultrasonic portion from a signal received at a microphone, and processing circuitry is provided to determine a delay time of an echo corresponding to the ultrasonic burst signal in that separated ultrasonic portion of the received signal. In another aspect, the equalizer equalizes an ultrasonic portion of the signal received at a microphone, according to frequency response characteristics of the speaker and microphone at the ultrasonic frequencies of the burst.

Ultrasonic equalization and gain control for smart speakers

In a described example, a circuit includes a sensor circuit including multiple magnetic field sensors having respective sensor outputs. The magnetic field sensors are configured to provide magnetic field sensor signals at the respective sensor outputs representative of a measure of current flow through a conductive structure. A combiner interface has combiner inputs and a combiner output. The combiner inputs are coupled to the respective sensor outputs. The combiner interface is configured to provide an aggregate sensor measurement at the combiner output responsive to the magnetic field sensor signals, in which the aggregate sensor measurement is decoupled from magnetic fields generated responsive to the current flow through the conductive structure.

Magnetic current sensing

In an ultrasonic detection system that uses frequency-modulation or phase-modulation coding to distinguish emitted bursts from multiple transducers, a receiver associated with a transducer uses peak search, peak buffer, and peak rank stages in one or more receiver signal processing paths to identify valid received ultrasonic signal envelope peaks in correlator outputs. The peak rank stage can support different modes respectively designed to handle one code, two or more codes, or two or more codes with support for Doppler frequency shift detection. Valid peak information (e.g., amplitude and time) can be reported to a central controller and/or stored locally in a fusion stage to generate more intelligent information for targets or obstacles using peaks from multiple bursts.

Time of flight and code signature detection for coded ultrasonic transmission

In an ultrasonic detection system that uses frequency-modulation coding to distinguish emitted bursts from multiple transducers, a receiver associated with a transducer uses dynamic thresholding to discriminate valid echoes from system and environmental noise in multiple envelope signals produced by multiple correlators. The time-varying dynamic thresholds are generated from the mean of noise in a respective envelope derived from the output of a respective correlator. Multiple thresholds can be combined together such that a single time-varying threshold is applied to all correlators' envelopes. Such thresholding has the benefits of a constant false-alarm rate with regard to detection of echoes (as opposed to false triggering from noise), and, owing to finer-resolution and adaptive thresholds, can detect targets or obstacles as further distances and with greater time responsiveness.

Threshold generation for coded ultrasonic sensing

A system comprises first and second Hall-effect sensors and an amplifier. The first Hall-effect sensor has a first bias current direction parallel to a first direction, a pair of first bias input terminals spaced along the first direction, and a pair of first sense output terminals spaced along an orthogonal second direction. The second Hall-effect sensor has a second bias current direction parallel to the second direction, a pair of second bias input terminals spaced along the second direction, and a pair of second sense output terminals connected out of phase with the first sense terminals. The amplifier has a pair of amplifier input terminals coupled to the first and second sense terminals.

Differential hall sensor

An avalanche photo-diode (APD) circuit includes a first APD and a bias circuit. The first APD is configured to detect light. The bias circuit is configured to control a gain of the first APD. The bias circuit includes a second APD, a reference voltage source, a bias voltage generation circuit, and a metal layer configured to shield the second APD from the light. The reference voltage source is configured to bias the second APD. The bias voltage generation circuit is configured to generate a bias voltage for biasing the first APD based on dark current output by the second APD.

Avalanche photodiode gain control comprising a bias circuit having a second avalanche photodiode

A transducer system. The system comprises a transducer and circuitry for applying an excitation waveform to excite the transducer during an excitation period. The circuitry for applying has: (i) circuitry for applying a first waveform at a first frequency; and (ii) circuitry for applying a second waveform at a second frequency differing from the first frequency.

Ultrasonic transducer system and method for bi-modal system responses

A pulsed light source illuminates a scene with a virtual array of points. Light reflected by the scene is detected by a small pixel array, allowing generation of a three-dimensional map of the scene. A processing element processing data output by the small pixel array uses a multipath resolution algorithm to resolve individual objects in the scene.

Virtual array method for 3D robotic vision

An amplifier includes a graphene Hall sensor (GHS). The GHS includes a graphene layer formed above a substrate, a dielectric structure formed above a channel portion of the graphene layer, and a conductive gate structure formed above at least a portion of the dielectric structure above the channel portion of the graphene layer for applying a gate voltage. The GHS also includes first and second conductive excitation contact structures coupled with corresponding first and second excitation portions of the graphene layer for applying at least one of the following to the channel portion of the graphene layer: a bias voltage; and a bias current. The GHS further includes first and second conductive sense contact structures coupled with corresponding first and second sense portions of the graphene layer. The amplifier also includes a current sense amplifier (CSA) coupled to the GHS. The CSA senses current output from the GHS.

Amplification using ambipolar hall effect in graphene

An ultrasound detect circuit includes a decimator that decimates a transmit signal to be transmitted through an ultrasonic transducer. The transmit signal is decimated to generate first and second template signals. The decimator uses a different decimation ratio to generate the first template signal than the second template signal. The circuit also includes a first correlator to correlate a signal derived from the ultrasonic transducer with the first template signal, aa second correlator to correlate the signal derived from the ultrasonic transducer with the second template signal, and a Doppler shift determination circuit to determine a Doppler frequency shift based on an output from the first correlator and an output from the second correlator.

Ultrasonic echo processing in presence of Doppler shift

A Hall sensor circuit includes a first Hall sensor, a second Hall sensor, a first preamplifier circuit, a second preamplifier circuit, a subtractor circuit, and a duty cycling circuit. The first preamplifier circuit includes an input and an output. The input is coupled to the first Hall sensor. The second preamplifier circuit includes a first input, a second input, and an output. The first input is coupled to the second Hall sensor. The subtractor circuit includes a first input coupled to the output of the first preamplifier circuit, a second input coupled to the output of the second preamplifier circuit, and an output coupled to the second input of the second preamplifier circuit. The duty cycling circuit is coupled to the second preamplifier circuit and the second Hall sensor.

Hall sensor circuit

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Dallas, TX, United States of America

Srinath Mathur Ramaswamy