Recovery of the free field in noisy environment by using the spherical wave superposition method

To remove the scattering effect of the disturbing sound on the target source when implementing nearfield acoustic holography in a non-free field, a free field recovery technique based on the spherical wave superposition method is proposed. In the method, the sound field separation technique based on the spherical wave superposition method is first used to separate the incoming and outgoing fields, and a further step for separating the radiated and scattered fields is performed by utilizing the surface admittance of the target source as the boundary condition. The technique makes it possible to correctly identify noise sources in a non-free sound field. The basic principle of the technique is described firstly, a method for choosing the optimal number of spherical wave expansion terms is given, and two numerical simulations are used to demonstrate the validity of this technique. It is shown that, for the lower frequency, the scattering effect can be neglected, and the radiated field of the target source can be obtained by the sound field separation technique, however, as the increasing of the frequency, the scattering effect cannot be neglected, and the free field recovery technique has to be used to obtain the radiated field of the target source.     

Video visualization for moving sound sources based on binoculars stereo and acoustic holography

The video visualization methods for moving sound sources are very important. The spatial positions in the sound filed measurement of moving sources arc measured by an automated method based on the binoculars stereo technique,the spatial coordinates of the surface of the moving sound source are determined automatically.The sound field of the surface of the moving source is reconstructed with a microphone array using the acoustic holography method for moving sound sources.The spatial mapping between the sound field and the video images is constructed,and also the time sequence of the sound field and the images is founded. Then,the reconstructed sound field and the real-world images are merged,and the visualized sound field video of the moving source is generated automatically.A sound field measurement system based on this method is developed,the measurement results of the moving sound source with this system indicate that the sound field video visualization is realized effectively with the proposed method,the sound sources and their changing process can be seen directly from the generated video,the identification and localization for the moving sound sources can be easier with this method.     

Head-related transfer function database and its analyses

Based on the measurements from 52 Chinese subjects (26 males and 26 females), a high-spatial-resolution head-related transfer function (HRTF) database with corre- sponding anthropometric parameters is established. By using the database, cues relating to sound source localization, including interaural time difference (ITD), interaural level difference (ILD), and spectral features introduced by pinna, are analyzed. Moreover, the statistical relationship between ITD and anthropometric parameters is estimated. It is proved that the mean values of maximum ITD for male and female are significantly different, so are those for Chinese and western sub- jects. The difference in ITD is due to the difference in individual anthropometric parameters. It is further proved that the spectral features introduced by pinna strongly depend on individual; while at high frequencies (f≥ 5.5 kHz), HRTFs are left-right asymmetric. This work is instructive and helpful for the research on bin- aural hearing and applications on virtual auditory in future.     

DISCREPANCY IN SOUND POWER DETERMINATION AT LOW FREQUENCIES

The determination of the sound power of a source is simple in a reverberation chamber,but usuallylower valves are obtained at low frequencies than the free-space value.It is shown that the sound powerdetermined in a reverberation chamber depends not only on its free-space power,but also on the positions of the source and the reveiver,as well as the way the measurements are made and averaged.Exactand statistical formulas are derived to account for these factors.The results explain the discrepancy andagree well with earlier experiments.Based on the theory,parcticable techniques of sound power determina-tion are propesed and correct power formulas presented.     

Theory of sound field in a room

In the normal-mode theory of Morse, it gives a series of normal modes as the solution of forced vibration in a room. But actually there is always the direct radiation besides the normal modes which represent the reverbrant sound field only. The reason is that the normal modes were assumed only in the source, and naturally normal modes only are obtained in the solution. A theory of double source is proposed, that the sound source is both the source of the direct radiation as if in free space before the boundary surfaces were reached by the direct radiation, and after the first reflection from the boundary surfaces, the source of the reflected wavelets, randomly distributed both in space an in time on the boundary surfaces that build up the normal modes after further reflections. The wave equation is formed accordingly, and the solution of the wave equation, the sound field in a room, contains explicitly both the direct radiation and the reverberant sound formed of normal modes. The approximate mean square sound pressure is found to be the dircet sound determined by the sound power of the source,and reverberant sound determined by the sound power reduced by a factor of π/2, different slightly from the result obtained from energy consideration, if the source is pure tone. There is essentially no difference for a source of band noise.     

Spatial symmetry of head-related transfer function

Methods for analyzing the spatial symmetry of head-related transfer function (HRTF) are proposed. The influences of anatomical structures on the symmetry of HRTF are investigated using HRTFs measured on KEMAR mannequin and human subjects. Results show that for KEMAR mannequin, pinnae destroy the front-back symmetry of HRTF above 5 to 6 kHz, while for human subjects the frequency reduces to 2.5 kHz because of the locations of ears. Furthermore, at low and median frequencies, HRTF is approximately left-right symmetrical. While as frequencies increase, the asymmetry caused by the fine anatomical leftright differences appears. The starting frequency and the extent of the left-right asymmetry in HRTF depend on individuals. The analyses demonstrate the spatial symmetrical characteristics of HRTF and the frequency ranges in which the current binaural models are valid.     

Experimental demonstration of a three-dimensional omnidirectional and broadband acoustic concentrator using an anisotropic metamaterial

We report the theoretical design and experimental demonstration of a three-dimensional(3D)omnidirectional and broadband metamaterial-based concentrator for airborne sound.The proposed mechanism uses a homogeneous anisotropic acoustic metamaterial with an ellipsoidal equifrequency contour to efficiently redirect the acoustic energy impinging on its outer surface into the central region,regardless of the incident direction.A design of the metamaterial unit cell is proposed as a practical implementation of our strategy,which is simply realized by perforating a solid spherical shell with a linearly shrinking cross section in the radial direction.We analytically and numerically prove that the non-resonant anisotropic effective acoustic parameters required for building the concentrator are produced with such a design.Good agreement is observed between the theoretical predictions and experimental measurements.An effective concentration of the incident acoustic energy is observed within a broadband that ranges 1000-1600 Hz.The experimental realization of this 3D acoustic concentrator with a simple design,low energy loss,replaceable constituent material,and omnidirectional and broadband functionality offers new possibilities for acoustic manipulations and may have important applications in a plethora of scenarios ranging from energy harvesting to noise mitigation.     

Sound field separation technique with double holographic planes and its applications in acoustic holography

Sound field separation technique with double holographic planes is proposed, which overcomes the limitation on applications of near-field acoustic holography (NAH) and broadband acoustic holography from intensity measurement (BAHIM). The limitation is that sound field on one side of holographic plane must be free, that is to say, all the sound sources must be confined to the other side; but it is not easy to achieve for industrial measurements. The technique builds the sound field separation formula in wave number domain according to the wave field extrapolation theorem, and the sound pressure caused by sources on one side of holographic plane can be obtained as expected by taking two-dimensional Fourier transform of the formula. The derivation of the principle verifies the technique theoretically. The numerical simulations demonstrate its feasibility and effectiveness.     

Auditory filter based broadband MUSIC algorithm for sound source localization

Based on the analysis of the shortcomings of broadband MUSIC algorithm with short-time Fourier transform （SF-MUSIC） for sound source localization, a broadband MUSIC algorithm with auditory filter （AF-MUSIC） was proposed. The proposed algorithm first em- ploys auditory filter bank to decompose the signals received on the microphone array, and then locates the sound source with MUSIC algorithm over every frequency channel. At last, by combining with the subinterval frequency estimation, the final localization result is gained. Evaluations on the proposed algorithm prove that comparing with the SF-MUSIC algorithm, the AF-MUSIC algorithm decreases the average error of the estimation results with 2.5479 de- gree in different source conditions. The accuracy of sound source DOA estimation is enhanced effectively.     

Perturbation characteristics of ambient sea noise caused by submerged objects

The perturbation characteristics of ambient sea noise field caused by scattering of submerged objects are discussed theoretically. Based on the sea noise source model with Gaussian-correlation amplitude, and applying the integral expressions for arbitrary source distribution and the spherical wave expression of Green function for a monopole in half-infinite space, the expressions of direct-arrival noise fields, scattering fields and total noise fields of a rigid spherical object under the irradiation of monopole and dipole sources, as well as the covariance among those noise fields at two receiving points are obtained. The numerical results of scattering directional patterns of rigid spherical objects and the visibility are given. It is shown that the total noise field is affected by not only the impedance characteristics of the object, the direction of receiver, but also the correlation between surface sources, and the interference between direct-arrival and scattering fields greatly. The results show that the sound visibility of a rigid spherical object is about 4-5 dB in near range and the scattering directivity characteristics of a rigid spherical object under the irradiation of surface sources are different from those of plane wave incidence.