Patent ID: 11882416
Assignee: WAYMO LLC
Field: Audio-visual technology (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC H  B  G | IPC H

Claim 0:
1. A system comprising:
a first plurality of microphones positioned on an autonomous vehicle and associated with a first internal clock, each microphone of the first plurality of microphones able to capture a particular sound from a particular source to generate a corresponding audio frame having a timestamp based on the first internal clock, the timestamp indicative of a time a corresponding microphone of the first plurality of microphones captured the particular sound;
a second plurality of microphones positioned on the autonomous vehicle and associated with a second internal clock, each microphone of the second plurality of microphones able to capture the particular sound from the particular source to generate a corresponding audio frame having a timestamp based on the second internal clock, the timestamp indicative of a time a corresponding microphone of the second plurality of microphones captured the particular sound; and
a processor configured to:
synchronize the first internal clock with the second internal clock;
determine a location of the particular source relative to the autonomous vehicle based on the timestamps of the audio frames generated by the first plurality of microphones and the timestamps of the audio frames generated by the second plurality of microphones; and
generate a command to maneuver the autonomous vehicle based on the location of the particular source relative to the autonomous vehicle.