Method of operating electro-acoustic transducers, corresponding circuit and device

A circuit, comprising:

• an electro-acoustical transducer;
• exciter circuitry configured to apply to the electro-acoustical transducer an excitation signal over an excitation interval;
• ring-down sensing circuitry configured to sense a ring-down signal indicative of a ring-down behavior of the electro-acoustical transducer after the excitation interval;
• processing circuitry configured to measure a resonance frequency of the electro-acoustical transducer based on the ring-down signal;
• a receiver transducer configured to:
• transduce an acoustical signal received into an electrical reception signal;
• determine, based on the ring-down signal, a damping parameter of the electro-acoustical transducer;
• and
• synthesize a cross-correlation reference signal, based on the resonance frequency and the damping parameter;
• and
• cross-correlation circuitry configured to perform cross-correlation of the electrical reception signal and the cross-correlation reference signal.

A device, comprising:

• a circuit including:
• an electro-acoustical transducer;
• exciter circuitry configured to apply to the electro-acoustical transducer an excitation signal over an excitation interval;
• ring-down sensing circuitry configured to sense a ring-down signal indicative of a ring-down behavior of the electro-acoustical transducer after the excitation interval;
• processing circuitry configured to measure a resonance frequency of the electro-acoustical transducer based on the ring-down signal;
• a receiver transducer configured to:
• transduce an acoustical signal received into an electrical reception signal;
• determine, based on the ring-down signal, a damping parameter of the electro-acoustical transducer;
• and
• synthesize a cross-correlation reference signal, based on the resonance frequency and the damping parameter;
• and
• cross-correlation circuitry configured to perform cross-correlation of the electrical reception signal and the cross-correlation reference signal,
• wherein the device is at least one of:
• an obstacle detection device, a vehicle-mounted device, a volume measurement device, a gesture recognition device, a flow metering device, or a time-of-flight measurement device utilizing sound waves.