Acoustics and audio play vital roles in our lives. Our research focuses on spatial audio and acoustics for real-world applications in telecommunications, telepresence, entertainment, hearing aids, assisted hearing, noise cancellation over large areas, ultrasound imaging and localisation of acoustic sources. Sound spatialisation requires thinking about sound in three dimensions, including its orientation, directivity, trajectories, and spatial characteristics of the environment such as reverberation.

Our work ranges from theoretical research, to implementation challenges and experimental investigations. With the support of an ANU Major Equipment Committee Grant, we have established a cutting-edge spatial audio laboratory to conduct this research. We develop theory on sound field modelling for different kinds of sound sources in complex acoustic environments. This leads to work in design and analysis of microphone arrays, speaker arrays for spatial sound synthesis, estimation and equalisation of room acoustics, sound source localisation and separation, and active noise control over regions.

We have strong track records with competitive grants, including ARC Discovery, ARC Linkage and DECRA, and publication in high-impact peer-reviewed journals and refereed conferences in the field. We also collaborate with international academics and industry partners, such as Dolby Australia, Sony Japan, Facebook, Australian Signals Directorate, ACT government on research projects.

Explore our research projects below and if you’d like to discuss opportunities for collaboration or funding, please email us.

Announcments and Group News

  • PhD thesis defense: PhD student Huanyu Zuo from the Audio & Acoustic Signal Processing group, SOE is going to present his PhD thesis on Apr.29th 2021 at 1:00 – 2:00 PM.
  • AASP seminar series: PhD student Longfei (Felix) Yan from the Audio & Acoustic Signal Processing group, RSEEME is going to present his research work on Jan.20th 2021 at 11:05 – 12:00 PM.
  • AASP seminar series: Professor Thushara Abhayapala from the AASP group presented ‘Machine Audition for Intelligent Physical systems’ on Dec.17th 2020 at 1:00 – 2:00 PM.
  • Conference presentation: Ms Xiaoli Tang, Ms Wageesha Manamperi, Ms Amy Bastine, and Dr Prasanga Samarasinghe will present their research work at the Asia-Pacific Signal and Information Processing Association Annual Summit and Conference 2020, Dec 7-10, 2020.
  • AASP seminar series: HDR student Xiaoli Tang from the AASP group presented her recent work ‘Active Noise Control Over Multiple Zones: Adaptive Algorithm in Time Domain’ on Dec. 2nd 2020 at 1:00– 2:00 PM.
  • AASP weekly seminar: HDR student Amy Bastine from the AASP group presented her recent work ‘[Modelling Room Reverberation Directivity using von Mises-Fisher Mixture Distribution](https://cecs.anu.edu.au/events/modelling-room-reverberation-directivity-using-von-mises-fisher-mixture-distribution’ on Nov. 25th 2020 at 1:00– 2:00 PM.

People

Industry Partners

SONY Japan We have been actively collaborating with Sony Corporation Japan since 2016 through (i) Funded projects (sponsored research and consultancy), (ii) visiting Engineers from Sony at ANU and (iii) PhD student internships. Our collaborative work has mainly focused on “Active noise control to be used for noise reduction over space using Spherical Harmonic Domain/Wave Domain Signal Processing.”

Facebook (Reality Labs, Seattle) We have been actively collaborating with Facebook Reality Labs since 2019 through (i) Funded Projects (sponsored research) and (ii) PhD student internships. Our collaborative work has mainly focused on “Translation of Spatial Immersion for Binaural Reproduction”.

Dolby Australia We have been actively collaborating with Dolby Laboratories (Sydney and San Francisco) since 2014 through (i) Funded projects (ARC Linkage Project) and (ii) PhD student internships. Our collaborative work has mainly focused on “Simulating Spatial Soundfield Test environments for various Audio Device Testing”.

Australian Signals Directorate We have been actively collaborating with Australian Signals Directorate since 2019 through a Funded Research Project on “Advanced audio noise characterization and filtration for accelerated Automated Speech Recognition”

ACT Government We have collaborated with the Environment, Planning and Sustainable Development Directorate of the ACT Government since 2019 for collaborative research on “Automatic Recognition of Bird Calls” using Audio recordings from ACT Nature Reserves.

Research projects

Publications

2020

  1. H Sun, TD Abhayapala, P Samarasinghe, A realistic multiple circular array system for active noise control over 3D space, IEEE/ACM Transactions on Audio, Speech, and Language Processing

  2. Y Hu, TD Abhayapala, P Samarasinghe, Multiple Source Direction of Arrival Estimations Using Relative Sound Pressure Based MUSIC, IEEE/ACM Transactions on Audio, Speech, and Language Processing

  3. F Ma, TD Abhayapala, W Zhang, Multiple circular arrays of vector sensors for real-time sound field analysis, IEEE/ACM Transactions on Audio, Speech, and Language Processing

  4. Y. Hu, P. Samarasinghe, S.Gannot, T.D. Abhayapala, Semi-Supervised Multiple Source Localization Using Relative Harmonic Coefficients Under Noisy and Reverberant Environments, IEEE/ACM Transactions on Audio, Speech, and Language Processing

  5. J. Zhang, W. Zhang, T.D. Abhayapala, L. Zhang, 2.5 D multizone reproduction using weighted mode matching: Performance analysis and experimental validation, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

  6. Z. Abu-Shaban, H. Wymeersch, T. Abhayapala and G. Seco-Granados, Single-Anchor Two-Way Localization Bounds for 5G mmWave Systems, IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology

  7. H. Zuo, P. N. Samarasinghe and T. D. Abhayapala, Particle Velocity Assisted Three Dimensional Sound Field Reproduction Using a Modal-Domain Approach, IEEE/ACM Transactions on Audio, Speech, and Language Processing

  8. H. Zuo, P. N. Samarasinghe and T. D. Abhayapala, Intensity Based Spatial Soundfield Reproduction Using an Irregular Loudspeaker Array, IEEE/ACM Transactions on Audio, Speech, and Language Processing

  9. J. Zhang, N. Murata, Y. Maeno, P. N. Samarasinghe, T. D. Abhayapala and Y. Mitsufuji, Coherence-based performance analysis on noise reduction in multichannel active noise control systems, Journal of Acoustic Society of America

2019

  1. H. Zuo, P.N. Samarasinghe, T.D. Abhayapala and G. Dickins, Spatial sound intensity vectors in spherical harmonic domain, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

  2. H. Zuo, P.N. Samarasinghe, T.D. Abhayapala and G. Dickins, Erratum: Spatial sound intensity vectors in spherical harmonic domain, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

  3. J. Zhang, T. D. Abhayapala, W. Zhang, and P. N. Samarasinghe, Active noise control over space: A subspace method for performance analysis, Applied Sciences Special Issue Active and Passive Noise Control

  4. F. Ma, W. Zhang, and T. D. Abhayapala, Real-time separation of non-stationary sound fields on spheres, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

  5. F. Ma, W. Zhang, and T. D. Abhayapala, Active control of outgoing broadband noise fields in rooms, IEEE/ACM Transactions on Audio, Speech, and Language Processing

  6. Y. Maeno, Y. Mitsufuji, P. N. Samarasinghe, N. Murata and T. D. Abhayapala, Spherical-Harmonic-Domain Feedforward Active Noise Control Using Sparse Decomposition of Reference Signals from Distributed Sensor Arrays, IEEE/ACM Transactions on Audio, Speech, and Language Processing

  7. A. Fahim, P. N. Samarasinghe and T. D. Abhayapala, Multi-Source DOA Estimation Through Pattern Recognition of the Modal Coherence of a Reverberant Soundfield, IEEE/ACM Transactions on Audio, Speech, and Language Processing

  8. L. I. Birnie, T. D. Abhayapala and P. N. Samarasinghe, Reflection Assisted Sound Source Localization Through a Harmonic Domain MUSIC Framework, IEEE/ACM Transactions on Audio, Speech, and Language Processing

  9. W. Zhang, P. N. Samarasinghe, and T. D. Abhayapala, Parameterization of the binaural room transfer function using modal decomposition, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

  10. X. Wu, D. S. Talagala, W. Zhang, and T. D. Abhayapala, Individualized Interaural Feature Learning and Personalized Binaural Localization Model, Applied Sciences Special Issue Mobile Spatial Audio

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The Australian National University acknowledges, celebrates and pays our respects to the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people of the Canberra region and to all First Nations Australians on whose traditional lands we meet and work, and whose cultures are among the oldest continuing cultures in human history.

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