Research Seminars

Sound Field Analysis and its Applications

Banu Günel
Centre for Communication Systems Research
University of Surrey

Wednesday 9 November 2005, Room 105

Abstract

A sound field embodies three different types of information; the content, the location of the sound source and the acoustic characteristics of the environment. While the content is usually the focus of attention, the latter two form the directional information that is essential to reproduce realistic 3-D audio scenes. State-of-the art sound reproduction systems, such as the wave-field synthesis system, are capable of reproducing 3-D scenes if the directional information is explicitly available. However, it is usually implicit in the material recorded with conventional sound recording techniques. Therefore, a new approach is required for recording and extracting directional information. This talk will introduce sound source localisation and directional acoustical analysis techniques, both of which employ microphone arrays but developed independently. Built upon these, a new technique will be discussed for localisation of the sound source and early reflections, together with the application areas.

Bio

Banu Günel received her BSc (Hons) degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering in 2000 from Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi (ODTÜ), Ankara, Turkey. During the last 2 years of her undergraduate study she worked as a part-time researcher at the Information Technologies and Electronics Research Institute (TUBITAK-BILTEN), Ankara, Turkey. She was awarded a Chevening studentship in 2000 for MSc in Communication Systems and Signal Processing at the University of Bristol. Upon completion of her MSc with Commendation in 2001, she was awarded a SPUR studentship for PhD. She completed her PhD on audio and acoustical signal processing at the Sonic Arts Research Centre in the Queen’s University of Belfast in 2004. Currently, she is working as a research fellow at I-Lab, Centre for Communication Systems Research (CCSR) in the University of Surrey. Her research interests include binaural audio processing, wave field analysis and synthesis, room acoustics modelling, microphone array signal processing, perception, psychoacoustics, augmented and virtual reality applications. She is a member of the European Acoustics Association (EAA), Audio Engineering Society (AES) and IEEE.
http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/B.Gunel/