A state-space representation of the boundary integral equation for room acoustic modelling

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel boundary integral operator state-space (BIOSS) framework for room acoustics modeling, unifying various existing models and enabling new analysis and control methods.

Contribution

It presents a new state-space representation based on boundary integral operators, linking existing models and opening avenues for inference and control in room acoustics.

Findings

BIOSS can represent room acoustics in time and frequency domains.

The framework establishes equivalences with boundary element, delay network, and geometric models.

It enables new transfer function representations with feedback or feedforward structures.

Abstract

We introduce a new framework for room acoustics modelling based on a state-space model of the boundary integral equation representing the sound field in a room. Whereas state-space models of linear time-invariant systems are traditionally constructed by means of a state vector and a 4-tuple of system matrices, the state-space representation introduced in this work consists of a state function representing the pressure distribution at the room boundary, and a 4-tuple of integral operators. We refer to this representation as a boundary integral operator state-space (BIOSS) model and provide a physical interpretation for each of the integral operators. As many mathematical operations on vectors and matrices translate to functions and operators, the BIOSS representation can be manipulated to obtain two transfer function representations, having either a feedback or a parallel feedforward structure. Consequently, various equivalent representations for room acoustics are obtained in the BIOSS framework, in the time or frequency domain, and in continuous or discrete space. We discuss two future directions for how the proposed framework can be fertile for research on room acoustics modelling. Firstly, we identify equivalences between the BIOSS framework and various existing room acoustics models (boundary element models, delay networks, geometric models), which may be used to establish relations between existing models and to develop novel room acoustics models. Secondly, we postulate on how concepts from state-space theory, such as observability, controllability, and state realization, can be used for developing new inference and control methods for room acoustics.