June 17, 2013 — Blind people sometimes develop the amazing ability to perceive the contours of the room they're in based only on auditory information. Bats and dolphins use the same echolocation technique for navigating in their environment.
At EPFL, a team from the Audiovisual Communications Laboratory (LCAV), under the direction of Professor Martin Vetterli, has developed a computer algorithm that can accomplish this from a sound that's picked up by four microphones. Their experiment is being published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). "Our software can build a 3D map of a simple, convex room with a precision of a few millimeters," explains PhD student Ivan Dokmani
At EPFL, a team from the Audiovisual Communications Laboratory (LCAV), under the direction of Professor Martin Vetterli, has developed a computer algorithm that can accomplish this from a sound that's picked up by four microphones. Their experiment is being published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). "Our software can build a 3D map of a simple, convex room with a precision of a few millimeters," explains PhD student Ivan Dokmani