2020 Fiscal Year Research-status Report
Morpho-acoustic sensitivity analysis of the human outer ear
Project/Area Number |
17K00260
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Research Institution | Toyama Prefectural University |
Principal Investigator |
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Project Period (FY) |
2017-04-01 – 2022-03-31
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Keywords | Acoustic Resonance / Computer Simulation / FDTD / Pinna Geometry / Spatial Hearing |
Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
During the 2020 fiscal year, I began to calculate HRTF peak and notch sensitivity maps of a real human outer-ear, using my FDTD acoustic simulator. However, difficulties related to the Covid-19 pandemic unfortunately prevented any further research progress, so I am extremely grateful for one more year's extension. In preparation for that, and as the original plans for international conference travel will not be carried out under Covid-19, a large part of the remaining budget was used to purchase a mobile workstation; this will allow continued research despite any restrictions on travel or work location. A C-programming environment was set up on the new workstation (Windows10), so that both simulation and data analysis/visualization (in Matlab) can be done smoothly on the same computer.
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Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
4: Progress in research has been delayed.
Reason
Progress in the 2020 fiscal year (1st extension year) was much less than desired, because of Covid-related and technical reasons. The currently ongoing Covid-19 situation significantly affected all work commitments and therefore reduced severely the amount of my effort on this Kaken project. Another problem was on the technical side: while my C-language simulation program runs fine on the workstation purchased at the start of this project (running under Linux CentOS), I experienced increasing difficulties running Matlab on this computer due to certain incompatibilities. This problem caused a break between the acoustic-simulation and data-analysis tasks. As mentioned above, the newly purchased Windows10 mobile workstation is able to smoothly support both simulation and analysis.
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Strategy for Future Research Activity |
In fiscal year 2021, I plan the following two main tasks: (i) evaluate last year's modified boundary-conditions using a human ear shape. Compared with the simplified concha model tested previously, the complicated curved shape of the human ear should help to better understand the effectiveness (or shortcomings) of the method. (ii) using a human ear shape, calculate acoustic sensitivity maps for HRTF peaks and notches (focus on the first notch), regarding both frequency and amplitude (notch depth). Then, use these maps to modify either the shape or the reflectance of the air-skin boundary at high sensitivity regions, and thereby quantify the effects of such modifications on notch frequency and depth. I hope to present results at the forthcoming ASJ conferences in late 2021 and early 2022.
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Causes of Carryover |
As planned last year, instead of funding travel to international conferences which is undesirable or impossible in the Covid-19 era, I used a major part of the remaining budget to purchase a mobile workstation with large memory, which is being used for both simulation runs and data analysis. Therefore, a total of 69,018 Yen remains to be transferred to the 2021 fiscal year, which I plan to use mainly for conference registration and publication fees.
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