Receiver Placement for Speech Enhancement using Sound Propagation Optimization

Abstract: A common problem in acoustic design is the placement of speakers or receivers for public address systems, telecommunications, and home smart speakers or digital personal assistants. We present a novel algorithm to automatically place a speaker or receiver in a room to improve the intelligibility of spoken phrases in a design. Our technique uses a sound propagation optimization formulation to maximize the Speech Transmission Index (STI) by computing an optimal location of the sound receiver. We use an efficient and accurate hybrid sound propagation technique on complex 3D models to compute the Room Impulse Responses (RIR) and evaluate their impact on the STI. The overall algorithm computes a globally optimal position of the receiver that reduces the effects of reverberation and noise over many source positions. We evaluate our algorithm on various indoor 3D models, all showing significant improvement in STI, based on accurate sound propagation.