Hatphone, a wearable home theater

Abstract

Advancement in surround sound technology has revolutionized user experience when watching audio visual products compared to the widely used stereo systems. However, the current surround sound reproduction systems have prominent drawbacks such as the “sweet spot” constraint for home theater systems and the “in head localization” effect for headphone-based surround sound systems. In order to provide an alternative solution to the stated issue, the Final Year Project with topic “Hatphone, a wearable home theater” is proposed. In this report, the following research work and technologies will be covered and discussed: hatphone hardware design that includes hat-shaped structure setup and the mini loudspeakers configuration, surround sound algorithm design based on VBAP (Vector-Based Amplitude Panning), surround sound algorithm implementation by Matlab coded GUI and HRTFs measurements and analysis of the mini speakers applied. VBAP-based hatphone has demonstrated effectiveness in reproducing surround sound signals in near-field space with comparable direction localization quality in this project, which is verified by the user experience test with 10 volunteers participated.