Acoustic Ambiance Simulation using Orthogonal Loudspeaker Signals

A reproducible acoustic environment forms the basis for scientific evaluations of speech enhancement systems, as well as their influence on speech quality and intelligibility. Studies with people usually use binaural recordings played back through headphones. However, the effort required to evaluate such a speech enhancement system in this way can quickly become impractical, especially if the system is a black box and does not allow access to internal signals. In order to be able to investigate such systems and the associated influences on the listeners, a reproducible acoustic environment simulation has been developed that is able to generate different noise scenarios. The system uses loudspeakers to place both the listeners and the communication system in a realistic noise scenario. It recreates the statistical properties of the desired sound scenario at corresponding microphones using real recordings as reference.