• Resources
  • Directory
  • Webinars
  • CAD Models
  • Video
  • Blogs
  • EDGE Awards
  • Advertise
    1. Markets
    2. Automation

    Silicon Microphone Detects Emergency Vehicle Sirens

    Feb. 10, 2023
    Infineon’s new microphones can be used in vehicles to detect the direction of a first responder siren.
    Related To: Electronic Design

    Check out more of our CES 2023 coverage.

    What do you do when you're driving and hear a siren from an ambulance or fire truck? Look around to see where it is so you can adjust your driving accordingly?

    Well, Infineon's Scott Winder, Lead Principle Applications Engineer, demonstrates the advantage of the XENSIV MEMS microphone arrays. The array is used to detect a siren or alarm with respect to a vehicle, allowing the driver to know what direction the sound is coming from (see figure). 

    William Wong | Endeavor Business Media
    The MEMS microphone array (lower left) detects the direction of the siren, and the relative direction of the source is shown by the bright LED on the circular display.
    The MEMS microphone array (lower left) detects the direction of the siren, and the relative direction of the source is shown by the bright LED on the circular display.

    This represents just one interesting application of MEMS microphone arrays. They're also used in applications such as smart speakers to detect the location of a person speaking and optimize the recording of the speech in that direction. 

    Links

    About the Author

    William G. Wong | Senior Content Director - Electronic Design and Microwaves & RF

    I am Editor of Electronic Design focusing on embedded, software, and systems. As Senior Content Director, I also manage Microwaves & RF and I work with a great team of editors to provide engineers, programmers, developers and technical managers with interesting and useful articles and videos on a regular basis. Check out our free newsletters to see the latest content.

    You can send press releases for new products for possible coverage on the website. I am also interested in receiving contributed articles for publishing on our website. Use our template and send to me along with a signed release form. 

    Check out my blog, AltEmbedded on Electronic Design, as well as his latest articles on this site that are listed below. 

    You can visit my social media via these links:

    I earned a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Masters in Computer Science from Rutgers University. I still do a bit of programming using everything from C and C++ to Rust and Ada/SPARK. I do a bit of PHP programming for Drupal websites. I have posted a few Drupal modules.  

    I still get a hand on software and electronic hardware. Some of this can be found on our Kit Close-Up video series. You can also see me on many of our TechXchange Talk videos. I am interested in a range of projects from robotics to artificial intelligence. 

    Email

    Continue Reading

    Sponsored Recommendations

    Comments

    To join the conversation, and become an exclusive member of Electronic Design, create an account today!