AES Conference on Headphone Technology

KLIPPEL at AES International Conference on Headphone Technology

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General Information

Dates: August 27^th - 29^th 2019
Location: San Francisco, USA

Workshop Presentation by Robert Werner on Tuesday, 27^th August, at 11:15 am Measuring 3D Directivity of Microphones and Radiated Sound in Headsets and Hearables This workshop discusses practical approaches for automated measurement of three-dimensional audio directivity information in product development of modern head-worn personal audio devices. It focuses on the primary acoustic data, such as microphone response, that is crucial input data for effective DSP algorithms. In addition to measuring directivity patterns of individual microphones integrated in distributed microphone arrays, this workshop also addresses smart approaches for testing and evaluating near-field sound radiation like acoustic leakage.
Modern digital headsets such as true wireless earphones or so-called hearables, the bridging devices between consumer products and hearing aids, are much more than just miniature speakers with a microphone attached to them. In addition to simply playing music and providing hands-free telephony, such devices are more and more becoming personal assistants for an augmented reality experience.
Acoustically relevant components are especially critical because sophisticated DSP algorithms (active noise control (ANC), ambient awareness, speech enhancement, voice service interaction, etc.) rely on meaningful acoustic input data to capture both the user as well as the constantly changing three-dimensional environment in order to provide optimal overall performance and user experience.
Multiple miniature microphones (e.g. MEMS) may be accommodated in a small audio device or even distributed over various interacting wearable devices (e.g. smart glasses) in order to provide the required distributed primary acoustic data for high-level algorithms that exploit directivity information (e.g. time of arrival for beam steering).
For the R&D engineer, this is a complex challenge, and therefore it is crucial to focus on the mechano-acoustical design problems before integrating and tuning multi-channel DSP algorithms.

Please see the preliminary technical program for this Conference here!