Two methodology-trials using higher order correlation for reverberation measurement of noisy acoustic room
In this paper, first, we consider how to illustrate the effect of background noise to the measurement of room acoustics under a background noise of arbitrary distribution type. Two kinds of estimation methods are proposed to evaluate a proper reverberation time of a room by observing real unrefined decay curves, which can not realize smoothly a sufficient decay of 60 dB in a low frequency region, especially under a contamination of background noise. In the first method, an observation equation is derived from a stochastic model by means of well-known Sabine's differential equation, which is approximately rewritten in a matched form of difference equation especially to preserve its original physical meaning and functional linearity on the reverberation parameter. The effect of background noise is eliminated by employing a generalized state estimation algorithm based on Bayes' theorem. In the second one, after reflecting the effect of background noise in an observation equation of measuring model, a well-known mutual information criterion is introduced to estimate a reverberation time especially based on the basic property of statistical independency between signal and background noise. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed methods are experimentally confirmed too by applying it to the actual measurement of a reverberation time in the actual living situation of room contaminated by a background noise. The proposed methods are, however, some technique using actively the higher order correlation beyond a linear one, and so they are methodology-trials which should coexist with other techniques.
reverberation measurement room acoustics mutual information digital filter elimination of background noise