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Reflexive and Reflective Auditory Feedback Read chapter Read first chapter

2020 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

A Virtual Testbed for Binaural Agents

Author : Jens Blauert

Published in: The Technology of Binaural Understanding

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

Current developments in modeling the auditory system lead to increasing inclusion of cognitive functions, such as dynamic auditory scene analysis. This qualifies these systems as auditory front-ends for autonomous agents. Such agents can, for example, be mobile robotic systems, that is, they can move around in their environments, explore them, and develop internal models of them. Thereby, they can monitor their environments and become active in cases where potentially hazardous things happen. For example, in a Search-&-Rescue scenario (SAR), the agents could identify and save persons in dangerous situations. In this chapter, a virtual testbed for such systems is described that was developed in the EU project Two!Ears (www.​twoears.​eu) There, in simulated scenarios, the agents have to localize and identify potential victims and, consequently, rescue them according to dynamic SAR plans. The actions are predominantly based on binaural cues, derived from the two ear signals of head-and-torso simulators (dummy heads) on carriages that can actively move about in the scenes to be explored. Such a simulation system can provide a tool to monitor and evaluate the cognitive processes of autonomous systems while these are dynamically executing assigned tasks.

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previous chapter Modeling the Aesthetics of Audio-Scene Reproduction
next chapter Binaural Technology for Machine Speech Recognition and Understanding
Footnotes
1
The German term “Gestalt” describes an entity where the sum is perceived as more than the sum of its parts.
 
2
Head-related impulse responses (HRIRs) are the Fourier transforms of head-related transfer functions (HRTFs).
 
3
In the current project the “SoundScape Renderer” (SSR) of Geier and Spors (2012) has been chosen for this purpose—see www.​spatialaudio.​net/​ssr/​ [last accessed: August 18, 2019].
 
4
Sound-reflections from the walls were not considered, as this did not appear to be of importance for the current localization task. If this became necessary for tests in more complex scenarios, a precedence-effect processor had to be implemented—such as the one described by Braasch (2020), this volume.
 
5
If at a later point in time a sufficient amount of experimental data from the “real” agent is available, the emulated identity labels can be replaced by real ones. Identity classes could even be compiled automatically from experimental data.
 
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Metadata
Title
A Virtual Testbed for Binaural Agents
Author
Jens Blauert
Copyright Year
2020
Book
The Technology of Binaural Understanding

Print ISBN: 978-3-030-00385-2

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-030-00386-9

Copyright Year: 2020

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00386-9_17

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