Sound field reproduction analysis in a car cabin based on microphone array measurements

In recent years the demand for spatial sound reproduction has increased. Techniques like wave field synthesis (WFS) use a huge number of loudspeaker channels for spatial sound reproduction. A prototype car has been equipped with a massive multichannel loudspeaker array for WFS playback. The interior of a car is a quite complex acoustical environment, making high quality sound reproduction a challenging task. Due to the architecture of a car loudspeaker placement and alignment is limited and far from optimal in terms of WFS reproduction. The knowledge about the temporal, spectral and spatial characteristics of the sound propagation in the enclosure allows one to optimize the reproduction quality. In order to evaluate the sound field characteristics, high spatial resolution measurements using a planar microphone array have been conducted. This paper addresses the application of microphone array measurements inside a car cabin and exemplarily proposes some useful approache s for sound field analysis in automotive audio based on simulations using real measurement data. Copyrigh