Device calibration for presence detection using ultrasonic signals

Abstract

Techniques for calibrating presence-detection devices to account for various factors that can affect the presence-detection devices' ability to detect movement. Presence-detection devices may detect movement of a person in an environment by emitting ultrasonic signals into the environment, and characterizing the change in the frequency, or the Doppler shift, of the reflections of the ultrasonic signals off the person caused by the movement of the person. However, factors such as environmental acoustic conditions, noise sources, etc., may affect the ability of the presence-detection devices to detect movement. To calibrate for these factors, the presence-detection devices may use a loudspeaker to emit an ultrasonic sweep signal that spans different frequencies in an ultrasonic frequency range. The presence-detection devices may generate audio data using a microphone that represents the ultrasonic sweep signal, and analyze that audio data to determine an optimal frequency range and/or transmission power for subsequent ultrasonic signal transmissions.