Project outline
This project aims to develop virtual models to simulate and assess how humans perceive sound altered by acoustic metamaterials across different applications (such as absorptive treatments and noise mitigation), and to develop an interactive web app that demonstrates the sound of acoustic metamaterials through auralisation.
The emergence of acoustic metamaterials has opened up a wide range of novel ways to control sound, from extremely thin low-frequency sound absorbers to acoustic invisibility cloaks. The performance assessment of current metamaterials-based technologies is exclusively focused on objective metrics, such as absorption coefficients or sound pressure levels. What is missing in the current research landscape is a different view that looks at the human perception of how sound is altered by acoustic metamaterials and whether this can be exploited to make noise sound more pleasant, without necessarily improving objective metrics.
A key property of the models will be the ability to change the properties of the acoustic metamaterial treatments, such as their tuning or the type of metamaterial, to be able to study the sound-changing effects of the metamaterials. Each model will then be validated using the test facilities and equipment at the ISVR. Once validation is complete, virtual models will be used in listening tests to measure the effect of metamaterials on human subjective perception of sound and to contrast these findings with established objective measures.
The novel techniques developed in this project can be used to let the general public listen to the effect of acoustic metamaterials on these sounds through an interactive web app.
Project Partners
This project is hosted at the University of Southampton.
Student
Stuart Cumming