Measuring pressure and particle velocity along the human ear canal

Abstract

A non-invasive method of measuring or estimating accurately the head-related transfer functions (HRTFs) and headphone transfer functions (HpTFs), i.e., the pressure at the eardrum rather than at the blocked ear canal entrance is called for. In this work, a miniature-sized acoustic pressure–velocity sensor is used to measure both pressure and velocity along the ear canals of human test subjects. The measurements are used to study the applicability of a recently proposed method of estimating the pressure at the eardrum from pressure–velocity measurements made at the ear canal entrance. The measurement results are compared to results from computational modeling with human ear canal parameters. In addition, the effect of the PU-sensor itself on the pressure at the eardrum is studied. It is shown that the estimation method is reliable and accurate for most human subjects. The diameter and the shape of the ear canal affect the results in such a way that the best results are obtained with wide and straight ear canals whereas less accurate results are obtained with narrow and curved ear canals. It is concluded that the estimation method facilitates the obtaining of individual HRTFs and HpTFs at the eardrum using non-invasive measurements.