Binaural rendering from microphone array signals of arbitrary geometry

TL;DR

This paper introduces a flexible binaural rendering method using arbitrarily placed microphones, enabling soundfield reproduction over larger regions and demonstrating robustness to listener position changes.

Contribution

It proposes a novel harmonic analysis approach for arbitrary microphone arrangements and a spherical-wave-decomposition-based binaural rendering considering distance effects.

Findings

Robustness to listener position changes

Effective soundfield reproduction with arbitrary microphone arrays

Successful experimental validation including listening tests

Abstract

A method of binaural rendering from microphone array signals of arbitrary geometry is proposed. To reproduce binaural signals from microphone array recordings at a remote location, a spherical microphone array is generally used for capturing a soundfield. However, owing to the lack of flexibility in the microphone arrangement, the single spherical array is sometimes impractical for estimating a large region of a soundfield. We propose a method based on harmonic analysis of infinite order, which allows the use of arbitrarily placed microphones. In the synthesis of the estimated soundfield, a spherical-wave-decomposition-based binaural rendering is also formulated to take into consideration the distance in measuring head-related transfer functions. We develop and evaluate a composite microphone array consisting of multiple small arrays. Experimental results including those of listening tests indicate that our proposed method is robust against change in listening position in the recording area.