To support spatial audio research, we aim to take recordings from complex acoustic environments with moving sources and microphones, however we observe a lack of research tools that can accomplish this. Past approaches recorded people engaging in various tasks, which produces rich data that unfortunately lacks repeatability. We propose using robots to recreate dynamic scenes without the inherent variability of human motion. To be useful, this Mechatronic Acoustic Research System must be remotely accessible, offer concise representations of dynamic scenes, support a variety of robot and audio devices, and synchronize robot motion. In this talk, we show how we solved these challenges. Remote experimentation is facilitated by our virtual interface, which uses a simple GUI to describe robot motion and audio playback/recording. A digital twin physical simulation is used for visualization and validation of motion paths. We propose using the Robot Operating System for multi-robot coordination so that networked robots can be incorporated with little overhead. We use MARS to run experiments where a cable-driven parallel robot moves a loudspeaker along a 3D path while being recorded from distributed Matrix Voice microphone arrays. We evaluate the measured audio to show repeatability of the system, justifying its use in research.
Acoustic head simulators are used to collect realistic binaural audio with accurate interaural cues. Head simulators are difficult to acquire and often provide only listening and recording capabilities. For cocktail parties and conversation scenarios, it is necessary to have many head simulators that can simultaneously produce speech and capture sound. An added dimension of realism can be provided with motion. We rely on 3D printing to fabricate a large number of head simulators, each of which is equipped with a loudspeaker for mimicking speech production. We use silent multi-axis turrets to provide neck-like motion. Our actuated head simulator collection is integrated into the Mechatronic Acoustic Research System.
Reverberation poses a challenge for speech processing systems and is unavoidable in real environments. As such, acoustic signal processing researchers are interested in robust algorithms that can perform well regardless of reverb severity. Measuring reverberant speech requires access to rooms with the desired dimensions, which may not be readily available. Furthermore, for heavily instrumented recording setups such as our Mechatronic Acoustic Research System (MARS), moving equipment between locations is not practical. We propose a system of actuated multi-textured panels which can significantly alter the reverb properties of a static room. By changing the angle of these panels, we can smoothly transition from high to low reverberation times. We show this empirically and develop a system that provides a requested reverb level automatically, once configured for a fixed size installation. This tool can allow researchers to use a single room to take measurements applicable to a more diverse range of environments. We integrate our system into the MARS project, an automated tool for generating spatial audio datasets.
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