The virtual microphone technique in active sound field control systems

Abstract

Active Sound Field Control (AFC) has been proven very useful in reverberation enhancement applications in large rooms. However, feedback control is required in order to eliminate peaks in the frequency response of the system. The present research closely follows the studies of Shimizu in AFC, in which smoothing of the rooms transfer function is achieved by averaging the impulse responses of multiple microphones. ‘‘The virtual or rotating microphone technique’’ reduces the number of microphones in the aforementioned AFC technology, while still achieving the same acoustical effects in the room. After the impulse responses at previously specified pairs of microphone positions are measured, the ratio of transfer functions for every pair is calculated, thus yielding a constant K. Next, microphones are removed and their impulse responses are reproduced by processing the incoming signal of each pair through a convolver, where the computed K constants have been previously stored. Band limiting, windowing and time variance effects are critical factors, in order to reduce incoherence effects and yield reliable approximations of inverse filters and consequently calculations of K. The project is implemented in a church lacking low frequency reverberation for music and makes use of 2 physical and 2 virtual microphones.