Computing head related impulse responses and transfer functions using time domain equivalent sources

Abstract

In the past, head-related impulse responses (HRIR) and head-related transfer functions (HRTF) have primarily been computed using frequency domain boundary element methods or finite-difference time domain methods. The possibility of computing HRIRs and HRTFs using transient equivalent sources is examined using a lumped parameter technique for enforcing the specified boundary condition. It is demonstrated that performing the computations in the time domain is advantageous because only a few thousand time steps are need to fully define the HRIRs and nonuniform meshes can be used to reduce the number of acoustic variables drastically without significantly degrading the solution accuracy. It is also shown that the computations adapt well to parallel processing environments and the times associated with the equivalent source calculations are proportional to the number of processors.