Hearing in True 3-D

About this technology

Overview

In 1984, researchers from Ames Research Center came together to develop advanced human interfaces for NASA's teleoperations that would come to be known as virtual reality." Twenty years later this prolific research continues to pay dividends to society in the form of cutting-edge virtual reality products such as an interactive audio simulation system. While audio simulation technology has been called "3-D sound this same title has been applied to spatialized and surround sound, which are simpler technologies attempting to leverage traditional sound production techniques. Spatialized and surround sound are great for creating a theatre effect in one's living room, but they do not help distinguish multiple alarms in a nuclear power plant control room, for example. AuSIM, Inc.'s interactive audio simulation, on the other hand, can make a distinction between these alarms, give a fighter pilot the natural cue for an approaching threat, or allow air traffic controllers to better associate pilot voices with the planes in the airspace and taxi-ways surrounding them, according to the company. AuSIM's solutions to help humans differentiate between simultaneous sounds are based on NASA-influenced audio simulation techniques that create and preserve the perceptual spatial clues in electronically transmitted sound. The solutions apply to military, industrial, and voice telecommunications.