Individualizing Head-Related Transfer Functions for Binaural Acoustic Applications

Abstract: A Head Related Transfer Function (HRTF) characterizes how a human ear receives sounds from a point in space, and depends on the shapes of one's head, pinna, and torso. Accurate estimations of HRTFs for human subjects are crucial in enabling binaural acoustic applications such as sound localization and 3D sound spatialization. Unfortunately, conventional approaches for HRTF estimation rely on specialized devices or lengthy measurement processes. This work proposes a novel lightweight method for HRTF individualization that can be implemented using commercial-off-the-shelf components and performed by average users in home settings. The proposed method has two key components: a generative neural network model that can be individualized to predict HRTFs of new subjects from sparse measurements, and a lightweight measurement procedure that collects HRTF data from spatial locations. Extensive experiments using a public dataset and in house measurement data from 10 subjects of different ages and genders, show that the individualized models significantly outperform a baseline model in the accuracy of predicted HRTFs. To further demonstrate the advantages of individualized HRTFs, we implement two prototype applications for binaural localization and acoustic spatialization. We find that the performance of a localization model is improved by 15 degree after trained with individualized HRTFs. Furthermore, in hearing tests, the success rate of correctly identifying the azimuth direction of incoming sounds increases by 183% after individualization.