SOUND FIELD FORMING APPARATUS AND METHOD, AND PROGRAM

• US 20190327573A1
• Filed: 06/21/2017
• Published: 10/24/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 07/05/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: MAENO, YU, TAKAHASHI, MASAFUMI, MITSUFUJI, YUHKI
• Granted Patent: US 11,310,617 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 1/403 loud-speakers
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 3/12 for distributing signals to two or more loudspeakers specially adapted for hearing aids H04R25/407
• CPC Class Codes: H04S 2420/13 Application of wave-field synthesis in stereophonic audio systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04S 7/302 Electronic adaptation of stereophonic sound system to listener position or orientation H04S7/301 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04S 7/303 Tracking of listener position or orientation

Abstract

The present technology relates to a sound field forming apparatus and method, and a program, enabled to improve reproducibility of a wave front by using a smaller amount of computation. A sound field forming apparatus includes a listener position acquisition section configured to acquire listener positional information indicating a position of a listener, a drive speaker selection section configured to select one or a plurality of speakers, as a drive speaker, used to form a sound field, among the speakers configuring a speaker array on the basis of the listener positional information, and a drive signal generation section configured to drive the drive speaker and generate a speaker drive signal for forming the sound field in accordance with a selection result of the drive speaker. The present technology can be applied to the sound field forming apparatus.

Claims

1. A sound field forming apparatus comprising:

a listener position acquisition section configured to acquire listener positional information indicating a position of a listener;

a drive speaker selection section configured to select one or a plurality of speakers, as a drive speaker, used to form a sound field, among the speakers configuring a speaker array on a basis of the listener positional information; and

a drive signal generation section configured to drive the drive speaker and generate a speaker drive signal for forming the sound field in accordance with a selection result of the drive speaker.

2. The sound field forming apparatus according to claim 1, wherein

the speaker drive signal is a signal for forming the sound field by wave front synthesis.

3. The sound field forming apparatus according to claim 1, wherein

the drive signal generation section convolutes a filter coefficient and a sound source signal and generates the speaker drive signal only regarding the drive speaker of the speakers configuring the speaker array.

4. The sound field forming apparatus according to claim 3, further comprising a filter coefficient recording section configured to record the filter coefficient of each of the speakers configuring the speaker array.

5. The sound field forming apparatus according to claim 1, wherein

the drive speaker selection section selects a speaker positioned near to the listener as the drive speaker in a direction parallel to the speaker array.

6. The sound field forming apparatus according to claim 1, wherein

the drive speaker selection section selects a speaker positioned near to a sound source generated by forming the sound field as the drive speaker in a direction parallel to the speaker array.

7. The sound field forming apparatus according to claim 1, wherein

the drive speaker selection section selects the drive speaker so that as the listener exists in a position more distant from the speaker array, a number of the drive speakers becomes larger in a direction vertical to the speaker array.

8. The sound field forming apparatus according to claim 1, wherein

the drive speaker selection section selects the drive speaker so that as the number of the listeners or listener groups is larger, the number of the drive speakers that are selected regarding the listener or the listener group becomes smaller in a case where the drive speaker is selected in each of the listeners or in each of the listener groups.

9. The sound field forming apparatus according to claim 1, wherein

the drive speaker selection section selects the drive speaker in accordance with a forming system of the sound field.

10. A sound field forming method comprising the steps of:

acquiring listener positional information indicating a position of a listener;

selecting one or a plurality of speakers, as a drive speaker, used to form a sound field, among the speakers configuring a speaker array on a basis of the listener positional information; and

driving the drive speaker and generating a speaker drive signal for forming the sound field in accordance with a selection result of the drive speaker.

11. A program for causing a computer to execute a process comprising the steps of:

acquiring listener positional information indicating a position of a listener;

selecting one or a plurality of speakers, as a drive speaker, used to form a sound field, among the speakers configuring a speaker array on a basis of the listener positional information; and

driving the drive speaker and generating a speaker driving signal for forming the sound field in accordance with a selection result of the drive speaker.