Personal Sound Zones and Shielded Localized Communication through Active Acoustic Control

TL;DR

This paper introduces a time-domain method for creating personal sound zones and shielded communication by controlling acoustic fields with an array of sources, extending previous scalar Helmholtz field techniques.

Contribution

It extends previous scalar Helmholtz field control methods to the time domain, enabling practical creation of personal sound zones and localized communication.

Findings

Effective control of acoustic fields demonstrated through simulations.

The Fourier synthesis approach achieves desired sound zones with minimal spillover.

The method maintains stability and non-radiating properties of the sources.

Abstract

In this paper, we present a time domain extension of our strategy on manipulating radiated scalar Helmholtz fields and discuss two important applied scenarios, namely (1) creating personal sound zones inside a bounded domain and (2) shielded localized communication. Our strategy is based on the authors' previous works establishing the possibility and stability of controlling acoustic fields using an array of almost non-radiating coupling sources and presents a detailed Fourier synthesis approach towards a time-domain effect. We require that the array of acoustic sources creates the desired fields on the control regions while maintaining a zero field beyond a larger circumscribed sphere. This paper recalls the main theoretical results then presents the underlying Fourier synthesis paradigm and show, through relevant simulations, the performance of our strategy.