A Phase Grating Approach to Modeling Surface Diffusion in FDTD Room Acoustics Simulations

K. Kowalczyk, M. van Walstijn, D.T. Murphy

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

In this paper, a method for modeling diffusive boundaries in finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) room acoustics simulations with the use of impedance filters is presented. The proposed technique is based on the concept of phase grating diffusers, and realized by designing boundary impedance filters from normal-incidence reflection filters with added delay. These added delays, that correspond to the diffuser well depths, are varied across the boundary surface, and implemented using Thiran allpass filters. The proposed method for simulating sound scattering is suitable for modeling high frequency diffusion caused by small variations in surface roughness and, more generally, diffusers characterized by narrow wells with infinitely thin separators. This concept is also applicable to other wave-based modeling techniques. The approach is validated by comparing numerical results for Schroeder diffusers to measured data. In addition, it is proposed that irregular surfaces are modeled by shaping them with Brownian noise, giving good control over the sound scattering properties of the simulated boundary through two parameters, namely the spectral density exponent and the maximum well depth.
Original languageEnglish
Article number5475232
Pages (from-to)528-537
Number of pages10
JournalIEEE Transactions On Audio Speech And Language Processing
Volume19
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Mar 2011

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