Instrumental Analysis and Synthesis of Auditory Scenes: Communication Acoustics
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Blauert Communication Acoustics INSTRUMENTAL ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESIS OF AUDITORY SCENES: COMMUNICATION ACOUSTICS JENS BLAUERT Institut für Kommunikationsakustik, Ruhr-Universtität Bochum, D-77780 Bochum http://www.ika.ruhr-uni-bochum.de We propose in the following to use the cover label Communication Acoustics for those branches of acoustics which are closely related to the information technologies and computer sciences. After a short review of the relevant re- search fields of the Institute of Communication Acoustics at Bochum, Germany, two areas are dealt with in more detail, namely, instrumental analysis and instrumental synthesis of auditory scenes. In both areas it shows up that cognitive and multi-modal phenomena have to be taken into account. Thus, future communication-acoustical systems shall most probably increasingly contain knowledge-based and multi-modal components - and, further, future communication-acoustical system will be embedded as subsystems into more complex systems. This technological development trend will coin the future of Communication Acoustics in the context of the information technologies. fields: strong-current EE (in German Starkstromtech- 1. INTRODUCTION nik) and weak-current EE (in German "Schwach- Since the vacuum triode had been invented at the ad- stromtechnik). After about 1950 the terms electrical- vent of the 20th century, and consequently, the possi- energy engineering and electrical-information bility of developing amplifiers for "low" frequencies engineering became more common for the two fields. appeared, acoustics as a scientific field has enjoyed a turbulent up-rise. Finally, a number of inventions could Yet, more recently and to a certain surprise of those be applied at large scale which had rested on the active in the field, the label electrical engineering is drawing boards for a long time, e.g., the technologies predominantly interpreted by the public in the sense of of magnetic recordings after Poulsen (1889) and opti- electrical-energy engineering. The information-related cal sound recordings after Ruhmer (1901). side of the coin is now mostly termed information technologies. Consequently, nearly all departments of Since about 1920, wireless broadcast developed as a EE in Germany have in the meantime changed their public media, followed by the technology of public- names accordingly, namely, to departments of Electri- address systems using loudspeakers (since about 1924) cal Engineering and Information Technology. and the talking film (since 1928). The (pure) acoustics, at this time - with its predominantly physical Electroacoustics in the sense as explained above and orientation - became subject to substantial broadening determined by its spectrum of applications, is closer to of its scope. Acoustics, in fact, became an engineering information-technology engineering than to electrical- science with potent application possibilities. The des- energy engineering. A particularly close connection ignation Electroacoustics for the new field was intro- exists to a relevant field within information technolo- duced at that time. gies, namely communication technology. Conse- quently, we have used the label Communication Since about 1965, computers made their way into Acoustics for those branches of acoustics which are acoustics. This fact offered new potencies with respect directly related to the information technologies. The to signal processing and storage and, thus, lead to an- name of our institute has been adapted accordingly. other enormous push in the development of acoustics - including all branches of acoustics. In fact, the conse- The modification of the name of our institute, as an quences of this process are still unpredictable. example, made sense for another reason. The term electroacoustics is now used more and more in a nar- With the advent of computers in acoustics the image of rower sense, namely, to designate the processes of electrical engineering has changed dramatically as energy conversion from electrical to mechanical well. This can, for example, be concluded from the (acoustical) energy and vice versa. Consequently, following terminological evolution: Until about 1950, when talking of electroacoustics, one thinks mainly of electrical engineering (EE) was subdivided into two the area which is primarily involved in electro-acousti- cal energy conversion. AES 22nd International Conference on Virtual Synthesis, Entertainment and Audio 1 Blauert Communication Acoustics The areas of research are coined by Communication It comes without saying that acoustics has a lot to do Acoustics and, predominantly, aim at applications in with communications. It is well known that inter-per- technology. At this time, three professors are active at sonal communication occurs mainly through the the Institute, namely, assistant professor Ute Jekosch, acoustical/auditory channel (speech & hearing). Any associate professor Herbert Hudde, and the author. impairment of the auditory information channel are, on Research activities are subdivided into four project these grounds, of specific relevance. They who do not groups (visit the institute's web site for more details): hear well, are prone to social isolation. (1) Auditory Signal Processing and Basically, the term Communication Acoustics appears Binaural Technology to be tautological, as acoustics is an artificial word, (2) Simulation and Virtual Environments originating in the 17th century and being derived from (3) Technical Audiology and Measurement the ancient Greek word for "to hear" (AKOÝEIN ... (4) Speech Communication and Product Sounds ak'u:in). There are two reasons for that we have chosen to use the term Communication Acoustics instead of In this contribution we shall, as examples, deal with just acoustics, namely, one related to facts and another two field in more detail which are most closely related one to politics. to the projects groups (1) and (2) and are particularly typical for Communication Acoustics, namely, instru- The reason related to facts is that there are indeed mental analysis and synthesis of auditory scenes. sounds which do not directly support communications, and, consequently, areas of acoustics which are not part or not directly part of Communication Acoustics. 3. AUDIO-TRANSMISSION SYSTEMS The political reason is as follows: For many young An important class of systems in communication people Communication Acoustics sounds more attrac- acoustics is given by audio-transmission systems. tive than just acoustics. And, since in the current situa- These systems allow to transmit auditory scenes across tion, where we suffer severely from a dangerous lack time and space. In other words: They make it possible of students of science and technology, this is without for listeners to listen to acoustical events at a different doubt a legitimate reason for a more attractive name. locations and/or a different times than were they originally happened. Classical systems of this kind are, Moreover, by the way, it becomes more and more e.g., radio broadcast and telephone. difficult to maintain Communication Acoustics as an isolated branch of its own at universities. Yet, inte- grated into those areas which, in mutual association, represent modern information and communication technologies, Communication Acoustics has certainly an indispensable role, especially in departments of electrical engineering and information technology and/or computer sciences. Acoustical (auditory) sys- tems components will be found embedded into a vari- ety of modern information and communication sys- tems. Fig. 1 Schematic of an audio-transmission system Luckily, acousticians, as a rule, do not have problems Essential components of audio-transmission systems to collaborate with other disciplines. They are used to are one or more microphones, means to transmit, proc- this situation, since acoustics as mediator between the ess and store audio signals, one or more transmission physical (sound) and perceptual domains (hearing) is channels (incl. coders and decoders), and loudspeakers inherently an interdisciplinary branch of science. or headphones. If authentic transmission is aimed at, Communication Acoustics, in this context, is particu- so-called binaural systems are a good choice, i.e. sys- larly qualified to contribute knowledge on the human tems which use artificial heads as a front end. being in its role as a source and sink and processor of information, and to have this knowledge at hand when As in modern systems of this kind the signals are re- it comes to application tasks. The research methods presented in coded form, one arrives at a schematic as used for these purposes can, by the way, be used for shown in Fig. 1. The system, consequently, contains investigations into other sensory modalities as well. means for audio signal processing including memory. The transmission channels are not explicitly shown in the figure for keeping it simple. 2. THE RESEARCH SPECTRUM OF THE BOCHUM INSTITUTE It is not the goal of this article to discuss audio trans- mission systems in detail. However, the schematic From the Bochum Institute of Communication Acous- depicted as in Fig. 1 is well suited to make clear what tics roughly 45 doctoral dissertations and more than the terms analysis and synthesis of auditory scenes 500 theses have evolved since its foundation in 1974. mean. AES 22nd International Conference on Virtual Synthesis, Entertainment and Audio 2 Blauert Communication Acoustics At first as concerns analysis: The listener (shown on the