Spherical harmonic beamforming based Ambisonics encoding and upscaling method for smartphone microphone array

You Y, Qian Y, Qu T, Wang B, Lv X. Spherical harmonic beamforming based Ambisonics encoding and upscaling method for smartphone microphone array. In: Convention Paper. Audio Engineering Society; 2025.pp. 10230:1-. Available from: https://aes.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=22912

@inproceedings{You2025_22912,
  author = {You, Yuhuan and Qian, Yufan and Qu, Tianshu and Wang, Bin and Lv, Xueyang},
  title = {{Spherical harmonic beamforming based Ambisonics encoding and upscaling method for smartphone microphone array}},
  pages = {10230:1-},
  year = {2025},
  month = may,
  publisher = {Audio Engineering Society},
  url = {https://aes.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=22912}
}

TY  - CPAPER
TI  - Spherical harmonic beamforming based Ambisonics encoding and upscaling method for smartphone microphone array
AU  - You, Yuhuan
AU  - Qian, Yufan
AU  - Qu, Tianshu
AU  - Wang, Bin
AU  - Lv, Xueyang
SP  - 1
M1  - Paper 10230
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/05/12
UR  - https://aes.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=22912
PB  - Audio Engineering Society
LA  - en
AB  - With the rapid development of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), spatial audio recording and reproduction have gained increasing research interest. Higher Order Ambisonics (HOA) stands out for its adaptability to various playback devices and its ability to integrate head orientation. However, current HOA recordings often rely on bulky spherical microphone arrays (SMA), and portable devices like smartphones are limited by array configuration and number of microphones. We propose a method for HOA encoding using a smartphone microphone array (SPMA). By designing beamformers for each order of spherical harmonic functions based on the array manifold, the method enables HOA encoding and up-scaling. Validation on a real SPMA and its simulated free-field counterpart in noisy and reverberant conditions showed that the method successfully encodes and up-scales HOA up to the fourth order with just four irregularly arranged microphones.
ER  -