Professional Documents
Culture Documents
225~234 (2012)
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea Vol.31, No.4 (2012)
Division of Electronics and Electrical Engineering Dongguk University, Chung-gu Seoul 100-715
(Received January 3, 2012; revised February 20, 2012; accepted March 5, 2012)
ABSTRACT: The anechoic chamber is essential tool to measure the various acoustic parameters with high precision.
The chamber provides the climate controlled indoor environments but requires the dedicated room at a great cost in
order to isolate and absorb sound field. Provided the purpose of the chamber is specific to the experiments of sound
localization, the performance requirements excluding free field can be alleviated for cost effective solution. This paper
designs low cost and profile anechoic chamber based on acoustic pyramids and evaluates the performance specified
by the Annex of ISO 3745. Data analysis is employed to measure the free and hemi-free field performance over five
straight paths for working areas and four paths for non-working areas. The identical two measurement campaigns were
conducted for free and hemi-free field chamber which is easily interchangeable by simple labor in this chamber design.
In the working area with conventional speaker, the results of these analyses demonstrate that lab-designed anechoic
chamber is in conformance with ISO 3745 for 250 Hz - 16 kHz one-third octave band at free field chamber and for
1 kHz - 16 kHz one-third octave band at hemi-free field chamber.
Key words: Anechoic chamber, Free field, ISO 3745, Inverse square law, Acoustic pyramid
ASK subject classification: Structural Acoustics and Vibration (11)
225
226 Keonwook Kim
The anechoic chamber is qualified by inverse square than versatile anechoic chamber in terms of the ratio
law which represents the natural spatial decreasing of between free field performance to the absorbing
carrier power over the distance. Provided that the effort.
microphone has proper isotropic property, the deviation
from inverse square law proportionally corresponds II. Chamber Design
to the power of indirect signal with certain degree of
freedom to the spectral properties of devices. ISO The chamber designed in this paper is based on the
3745:2003 specifies methods for measuring the sound acoustic pyramids to remove the sound reflections on
pressure levels on a measurement surface enveloping the boundary of the chamber. Although, the acoustic
a noise source in anechoic and hemi-anechoic rooms wedge is prevalent shape for the conventional chamber,
in order to determine the sound power level or sound pyramid figure is employed due to the cost efficiency
[7]
energy level produced by the noise source . The in volume-wise view. The pyramid occupies 33
annex A and B of the ISO 3745 describes the percent less volume than the wedge body with
criterion of the ideal free field and hemi-free field identical structural parameters, therefore the developing
condition for general purpose measurement and specific cost for the chamber is decreased with certain degree
sound source, respectively. At the time of writing this of performance degradation. Beranker and Sleeper
paper, the standard is in the process of being revised suggested that the best structure for the chamber is
to the ISO/DIS 3745 and minor modifications are glass fiber wedge in terms of pressure reflection
[8]
specified in the annex A and B . Also ISO/DIS however the pyramidal shape showed the com-
3745 states that the annex A will be separated for parable performance to the wedge [2]. The figures of
independent standard as ISO/DIS 26101 which is pressure reflection curve demonstrated that the pyramidal
[9]
under development status . structure has exponential decreasing over the frequency
The work presented in this paper proposes subset axis with minor ratio and frequency shift than wedge
of conventional anechoic chamber for the affordable performance. Therefore, the choice of the pyramidal
and maneuverable solution. Among the numerous structure is justified by the trade-off between the
acoustic experiments, the chamber offers the accurate expense and the performance.
environment for the Direction of Arrival (DOA) The chamber performance, which is free field
estimation based on received spectrum, phase, and range in terms of frequency and distance, highly
magnitude. In the experiments, the signal is produced depends on the pyramidal dimension and material.
by the conventional speaker and sensed by the specially The main body of the pyramid is fabricated from the
designed system for DOA estimation. Therefore, the open cell polyurethane foam with unknown nominal
design of the anechoic chamber should be focused on density and absorption coefficient. Unfortunately,
the receiver component and on the ease of the most of the acoustic foam companies in Korea does
transmitter component due to the predetermined signal not provide the absorption parameters based on
generator. Note that the conventional anechoic chamber ASTM C423 [10] standard. According to the Koidan et
handles the variety of sound sources with pre-defined al [3], less density of the material generally offers the
microphone locations (or moving microphone) in lower pressure reflection coefficient and reduced
order to evaluate the level of signal precisely. Due to cut-off frequency for the chamber. In this pyramid
the relatively predictable directivity of the generator, design, we assumed that the density of the material is
the designed chamber expects to be more efficient sufficiently comparable to the conventional acoustic
wedges in professional grade. The dimension of the Fig. 2. The dimension and actual picture of the chamber.
the spacing in less than 10 cm apart. In the designed in order to utilize the mathematical program easily
chamber, the microphone traverses the five straight via linearization. The above equation is modified into
paths with precise 5 cm distance for working area and linear equation as follow.
four paths with approximately 10 cm gap for non-
working area. For non-working area, the microphone
(2)
is mounted on the tripod boom stand which has
double axes for range extension therefore accurate
position is barely sustained for sound recording. The For the N performed experimental data, the equation
overall experiment deployment and chamber config- is organized as
uration is illustrated at Figure 4 as below.
The mathematical model from the test session is
based on the inverse square law which describes the
(3)
relationship between surface area of sphere and radius. ⋮ ⋮
⋮
In the free field condition, the inverse square law
log (1)
The solution for vector C can be written as below
(5)
Hz
250 500 1k 2k 4k 5k
Deg.
-10° 1.038 1.465 0.368 0.163 0.394 0.513
-5° 1.427 1.052 0.255 0.384 0.308 0.212
0° 0.942 0.338 0.423 0.292 0.377 0.270
5° 0.565 0.538 0.326 0.515 0.258 0.236
10° 0.245 0.795 0.673 0.388 0.133 0.136
Hz
6.3k 8k 10k 12.5k 16k
Deg.
-10° 0.408 0.185 0.440 0.148 0.343
-5° 0.180 0.183 0.172 0.163 0.264
0° 0.158 0.266 0.232 0.178 0.156
5° 0.314 0.163 0.155 0.256 0.334
10° 0.106 0.352 0.133 0.101 0.216
Table 3. Maximum absolute deviation in decibel over Table 4. Maximum absolute deviation in decibel over
the entire distance for given one-third the entire distance for given one-third octave
octave band and corner of free field chamber band and direction of hemi-free field chamber
non- working area. working area.
Hz Hz
250 500 1k 2k 4k 5k 250 500 1k 2k 4k 5k
Cnr. Deg.
NL 1.391 0.860 0.925 0.944 0.876 0.567 -10° 1.457 2.228 1.296 0.327 0.182 0.125
NU 2.280 0.396 1.397 1.052 1.875 0.386 -5° 1.259 2.369 1.550 0.906 0.894 0.660
PL 0.896 0.431 0.327 0.660 1.037 1.436 0° 1.453 2.613 1.535 0.155 0.178 0.229
PU 1.764 1.523 0.621 1.364 1.343 0.504 5° 1.911 2.526 1.421 0.378 0.218 0.178
10° 2.337 1.881 1.504 0.376 0.339 0.127
Hz
6.3k 8k 10k 12.5k 16k
Cnr. Hz
6.3k 8k 10k 12.5k 16k
NL 1.048 0.966 0.917 0.938 1.958 Deg.
NU 0.785 1.536 1.405 1.803 3.303 -10° 0.282 0.225 0.181 0.127 0.187
PL 1.177 0.560 0.777 1.200 2.168 -5° 0.987 0.791 0.669 0.624 0.470
PU 0.717 1.031 0.837 1.119 1.799 0° 0.143 0.228 0.081 0.126 0.250
5° 0.392 0.281 0.212 0.138 0.215
tendency of correlation in corner directions but the 10° 0.159 0.257 0.180 0.162 0.213
table presents the pronounced deviation values at the Table 5. Maximum absolute deviation in decibel over
high and low frequencies. Consequently, the corner the entire distance for given one-third octave
band and corner of hemi-free field chamber
of the free chamber provides inferior performance
non-working area.
due to the significant power of the indirect signal
Hz
from the structural drawback of concave shape. 250 500 1k 2k 4k 5k
Cnr.
NL 5.817 3.981 4.201 1.358 0.713 0.810
5.2 Hemi-free chamber NU 1.947 0.780 1.236 1.269 1.356 0.208
PL 4.807 3.432 2.124 1.647 1.030 2.004
The hemi-free field is established by withdrawing
PU 1.251 1.057 0.585 1.258 1.092 0.852
the entire acoustic pyramids from the chamber floor.
Table 4 organizes the absolute value of the maximum Hz
6.3k 8k 10k 12.5k 16k
Cnr.
deviation for the individual direction and frequency.
NL 1.342 1.574 1.326 1.974 3.440
Certain values in the table are above the upper limits
NU 0.397 1.639 1.797 1.870 3.425
and the eminent quantities are displayed with underline
PL 0.847 0.462 0.937 2.161 2.868
for readability. Consequently, the hemi-free chamber PU 0.458 0.777 0.531 0.997 1.331
does not comply with the requirement of hemi-free
field performance specified by ISO 3745. frequency overall in the Table 4.
Instead of full compliance, the hemi-free chamber For non-working area, Table 5 consolidates the
is in conformance with hemi-free field performance absolute value of the maximum deviation for the each
for partial frequency band as 1 kHz - 16 kHz one- corner and frequency. In the low frequency band, the
third octave band signal. Note that the distance lower corners produce the higher deviation than the
limited compliance cannot be specified due to the outcome of the upper corners because of the short
widespread deviation of 500 Hz result. Also the distance between the receiver and hard surface which
elimination of two low frequency bands is justified creates strong reflection of the sound. On the other
by accumulation of sound field shown in lower hand, the high frequency band presents no apparent
bias of corner direction but the overall the deviation speaker at the anechoic chamber which provides the
is outstanding. Therefore, the corner of the hemi-free realistic sound with free field.
chamber serves substandard performance due to the
disadvantage of corner and hard surface of floor. Acknowledgement