• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.68-77
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• 2005

The purpose of a spatial audio system is to give a listener an impression as if he were present in a recorded environment when its sound is reproduced. For this purpose a dummy head microphone is generally used. Because of its human-like shape, dummy head microphone can reproduce spatial images through headphone reproduction. However, its shape and size are restriction to public use and it is difficult to convert the output signal of dummy head microphone into a multi-channel signal for multi-channel environment. So, in this paper, we propose a multi-channel 3D microphone technology. The multi-channel 3D microphone acquire a spatial audio using five microphones around a horizontal plane of a rigid sphere and through post processing, it can reproduce various reproduction signals for headphone, stereo, stereo dipole, 4ch and 5ch reproduction environments. Because of complex computation, we implemented H/W based post processing system. To verily the Performance of the multi-channel 3D microphone, localization experiments were Performed. The result shows that a front/back confusion, which is the one of common limitations of conventional dummy head technology, can be reduced dramatically.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.153-165
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• 2005

The main purpose of a spatial audio system is to give a listener the same impression as if he/she were present in a recorded environment. A dummy head microphone is generally used for such purposes. Because of its human-like shape, we can obtain good spatial sound images. However, its shape is a restriction on its public use and it is difficult to convert a 2-channel recording into multi-channel signals for an efficient rendering over a multi-speaker arrangement. In order to solve the problems mentioned above, a spatial audio system is proposed that uses multiple microphones on a rigid sphere. The system has five microphones placed on special points of the rigid sphere, and it generates audio signals for headphone, stereo, stereo dipole, 4-channel, and 5-channel reproduction environments. Subjective localization experiments show that front/back confusion, which is a common limitation of spatial audio systems using the dummy head microphone, can be reduced dramatically in 4-channel and 5-channel reproduction environments and can be reduced slightly in a headphone reproduction.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Broadcast Engineers Conference
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• 1999.06b
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• pp.87-93
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• 1999

In this paper, we introduce a novel virtual studio environment where a broadcaster in the virtual set interacts with tele-viewers as if they are sharing the same environment as participants. A tele-viewer participates physically in the virtual studio environment by a dummy-head equipped with video "eyes" and microphone "ears" physically located in the studio. The dummy head as a surrogate of the tole-viewer follows the tele-viewer's head movements and views and hears through the dummy head like a tele-operated robot. By introducing the tele-presence technology in the virtual studio setting, the broadcaster can not only interact with the virtual set elements like the regular virtual studio environment but also share the physical studio with the surrogates of the tele-viewers as participants. The tele-viewer may see the real broadcaster in the virtual set environment and other participants as avatars in place of their respective dummy heads. With an immersive display like HMD, the tele-viewer may look around the studio and interact with other avatars. The new interactive virtual studio with the immersive viewer environment may be applied to immersive tele-conferencing, tele-teaching, and interactive TV program productions.program productions.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.751-755
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• 2005

We propose a sound source localization method using the Head-Related-Transfer-Function (HRTF) to be implemented in a robot platform. In conventional localization methods, the location of a sound source is estimated from the time delays of wave fronts arriving in each microphone standing in an array formation in free-field. In case of a human head this corresponds to Interaural-Time-Delay (ITD) which is simply the time delay of incoming sound waves between the two ears. Although ITD is an excellent sound cue in stimulating a lateral perception on the horizontal plane, confusion is often raised when tracking the sound location from ITD alone because each sound source and its mirror image about the interaural axis share the same ITD. On the other hand, HRTFs associated with a dummy head microphone system or a robot platform with several microphones contain not only the information regarding proper time delays but also phase and magnitude distortions due to diffraction and scattering by the shading object such as the head and body of the platform. As a result, a set of HRTFs for any given platform provides a substantial amount of information as to the whereabouts of the source once proper analysis can be performed. In this study, we introduce new phase and magnitude criteria to be satisfied by a set of output signals from the microphones in order to find the sound source location in accordance with the HRTF database empirically obtained in an anechoic chamber with the given platform. The suggested method is verified through an experiment in a household environment and compared against the conventional method in performance.

• Transactions of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering
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• v.14 no.12
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• pp.1268-1278
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• 2004

Measurement of noise is not only to know the information of acoustic pressure but to assess human response to noise. To find human response to transportation noise through the laboratory study we have to measure and reproduce noise. The method of noise reproduction is largely divided into monaural and binaural techniques. But human fundamentally hears sound through both ears, referred as binaural hearing. Binaural signal is different from monaural signal because it includes more information of physical phenomena like acoustical reflection, diffraction and refraction. Especially head and pinna play an important role in perceiving change of signal origin. So, the amplitude of binaural signal is higher than that of monaural signal and spectrum of both signals is discriminated. Most of assessment and regulation of transportation noise are, however, based on monaural measurement techniques. The quantitative difference between monaural and binaural measurement is investigated in this study. Comparison on several transportation noisesshows defect of information in monaural measurements.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2004.05a
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• pp.109-114
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• 2004

Measurement of noise is not only to know the information of acoustic pressure but to assess human response for noise. Provided that want to find human response for transportation noise, we will have to reproduce the measured noise. The method of reproduction is largely divided into monaural and binaural reproduction techniques. Human fundamentally hears sound through both ears, which is binaural hearing. And binaural technique includes the more information of physical phenomena like acoustical reflection and deflection. So, binaural reproduction is more suitable for assessment of the psychoacoustical and physiological response for transportation noise exposures.