{"id":266312,"date":"2017-09-08T14:56:44","date_gmt":"2017-09-08T18:56:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/?p=266312"},"modified":"2022-03-25T15:41:13","modified_gmt":"2022-03-25T19:41:13","slug":"light-sound-interactive-immersive-sound-266312","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/light-sound-interactive-immersive-sound-266312\/","title":{"rendered":"Designing a world of immersive sound"},"content":{"rendered":"

Imagine your new home theater features a screen that serves as an extended loudspeaker, able to radiate sound linked to moving video images. Then picture your walls and ceiling lined with flat-panel loudspeakers that double as wall-art, light panels, or ceiling tiles.<\/p>\n

What if you were able to create this totally immersive sonic space for a modest price\u2014say a couple of thousand dollars?<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the new audio experience that we want to give people,\u201d says Mark Bocko, professor and chair of electrical and computer engineering<\/a><\/strong> at the Ä¢¹½´«Ã½<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Bocko is working on the project with his PhD student, Michael Heilemann, and former PhD student David Anderson, who has graduated and joined the electrical and computer engineering department. Their work could result not only in sonically immersive home theaters, but also make airport and subway public address systems easier to understand, and give signs a \u201cvoice\u201d of their own. It\u2019s an example of cutting edge audio technology being developed at Rochester that could also be commercialized here, helping establish the city as a key player in sound.<\/p>\n

Better vibrations<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Flat panel loudspeakers now on the market are either \u201csuper expensive,\u201d says Bocko, or suffer from acoustic shortcomings that require incorporating traditional cone loudspeakers that limit the shapes they come in.<\/p>\n

Companies have been trying for years to create less expensive, truly \u201cflat\u201d panel loudspeakers only an inch thick\u2014typically by placing from one to a few small electromagnetic drivers on the back of panels made of glass, plastic, or other material. The magnets are each wrapped in electric coils and connected by wires to a circuit board, which is programmed to cause the magnets to vibrate. This in turn causes the panel to vibrate and produce sound waves.<\/p>\n

\"Mark
Flat-panel loudspeakers doubling as wall hangings and overhead lights \u201ccould cover a good fraction of the space surrounding you, and bring you sound from every direction,\u201d says Mark Bocko, director of the Center for Emerging and Innovative Sciences. (Ä¢¹½´«Ã½ photo \/ Bob Marcotte)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

These early approaches to flat-panel design, Bocko says, \u201cdidn\u2019t have sufficient control of the vibrations of the panel. In previous approaches you would get disorganized vibrations\u2014the different parts of the panel were not moving cooperatively, there were uncontrolled panel vibrations and the radiated sound was low-fidelity and had uncontrollable spatial properties.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bocko draws an analogy to several people bouncing on a trampoline. \u201cWhen one person starts jumping up and down, everyone else is going to start uncontrollably bouncing up and down too. But if everyone were to jump up and down at just the right times, they could control the trampoline to make it respond in any way desired.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what our method does.\u201d<\/p>\n

The key to their approach is the way in which the array of electromagnetic drivers is laid out, as well as the signal processing algorithms employed to closely control the vibrations of panels and the sound waves they create.<\/p>\n

Anderson and Heilemann have developed detailed models and created prototypes of flat-panel speakers that have audio fidelity that is \u201cnight and day better,\u201d than previous flat panel speakers, Bocko says. The parts for a typical prototype cost about $20.<\/p>\n

Bocko, Anderson, and Heilemann\u2014along with Mark Fiscella, a local engineer with extensive experience in\u00a0product development and manufacturing\u2014are in the process of forming a company to commercialize the technology.<\/p>\n

Changing how we bring sound into our lives<\/strong><\/h3>\n

They have other potential applications on their radar as well.<\/p>\n

Flat-panel loudspeakers could do double duty as signs for advertising and tradeshows, and for other commercial applications, such as fast-food drive-thru menus. Overhead LED lighting panels can also be turned into loudspeakers, Bocko says. Spaced throughout airports and subways, they wouldn\u2019t need to be turned up as loudly as the more widely spaced PA loudspeakers now used. This would cut down on the echoes and reverberations that make airport and subway messages almost impossible to discern at any distance.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the application I get most excited about is home entertainment systems,\u201d Bocko says.<\/p>\n

Flat-panel loudspeakers doubling as wall hangings and overhead lights \u201ccould cover a good fraction of the space surrounding you, and bring you sound from every direction,\u201d Bocko says. \u201cEspecially when you have overhead speakers, you can create a much greater sense of spaciousness and immersion.\u201d<\/p>\n

And unlike the sound used in virtual reality games, there are no headphones \u201ccutting the user off from the rest of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople want to layer audio on top of the natural sounds already present in their environment,\u201d Bocko says. \u201cWe think that this technology has the potential to completely change how we bring sound into our lives. That\u2019s why we\u2019re so excited about this work. \u201c<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Using a new approach to flat-panel design, Mark Bocko and his team are creating inexpensive prototypes of speakers that double as wall hangings and overhead lights. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":286,"featured_media":267772,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[116],"tags":[31972,34362,6426,19382,18632,33442,18032,34062],"class_list":["post-266312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sci-tech","tag-audio-and-music-engineering","tag-augmented-reality","tag-center-for-emerging-and-innovative-sciences","tag-department-of-electrical-and-computer-engineering","tag-hajim-school-of-engineering-and-applied-sciences","tag-light-and-sound-interactive","tag-mark-bocko","tag-virtual-reality"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nDesigning a world of immersive sound<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"With a new 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