Experience: Practical Problems for Acoustic Sensing

Abstract

Acoustic sensing shows great potential to transform billions of consumer-grade electronic devices that people interact with on a daily basis into ubiquitous sensing platforms. In this paper, we share our experience and findings during the process of developing and deploying acoustic sensing systems for real-world usage. We identify multiple practical problems that were not paid attention to in the research community, and propose the corresponding solutions. The challenges include: (i) there exists annoying audible sound leakage caused by acoustic sensing; (ii) acoustic sensing actually affects music play and voice call; (iii) acoustic sensing consumes a significant amount of power, degrading the battery life; (iv) real-world device mobility can fail acoustic sensing. We hope the shared experience can benefit not only the future development of sensing algorithms but also the hardware design, pushing acoustic sensing one step further towards real-life adoption.