Seminar 28th January 2014 4 p.m. Building 13, Room 3017 - Highfield Campus
Perceptually Optimised Sound Zones
Philip Jackson
University of Surrey
- Web page
- http://www.southampton.ac.uk/engineering/news/seminars/latest.page
- Submitter
- Luke Goater
Philip Jackson
Often, two people in a single room want to listen to different items of audio. It may be that one person wants to watch television whilst the other wants to listen to the radio, or even that one wants to play a computer game whilst the other reads in silence. The obvious solution to this would be for all individuals to wear headphones, however this dramatically increases isolation (not just in acoustic terms), is impractical when multiple people want to listen to one or other of the audio streams, and could be uncomfortable over an extended period. The aim, therefore, is to be able to reproduce sounds solely within confined areas of an acoustical space, in other words to reproduce specific sound zones whilst minimising crosstalk with other zones. This project at the University of Surrey is developing methods to radiate sound so that the audio is concentrated on the corresponding sound zones, with minimal spill into other zones. A model is being developed of the perceived effect of interfering signals in a sound zone, in order to optimize the performance of a system in a perceptually-relevant way. This talk will present the concepts behind the project and discuss its development and research contributions.