From vibration to perception: using Large Multi-Actuator Panels (LaMAPs) to create coherent audio-visual environments

Virtual reality aims at providing users with audio-visual worlds where they will behave and learn as if they were in the real world. In this context, specific acoustic transducers are needed to fulfill simultaneous spatial requirements on visual and audio rendering in order to make them coherent. Large multi-actuator panels (LaMAPs) allow for the combined construction of a projection screen and loudspeaker array, and thus allows for the coherent creation of an audio and visual virtual world. They thus constitute an attractive alternative to electro-dynamical loudspeakers and multi-actuator panels previously used. In this paper, the vibroacoustic behavior of LaMAPs is studied and it is shown that LaMAPs can be used as secondary sources for wave field synthesis (WFS). The auditory virtual environment created by LaMAPs driven by WFS is then perceptually assessed in an experiment where users estimate the egocentric distance of an audio virtual object by means of triangulation. Vibro-acoustic and perceptual results indicate that LaMAPs driven by WFS can be confidently used for the creation of auditory virtual worlds.