Immerse yourself in spatial worlds of sound: TU Ilmenau’s virtual reality lab is ready to go

The TU Ilmenau has upgraded its high-tech listening laboratory for use in research and teaching. With 77 precisely tuned loudspeakers, acoustic environments can now be realistically simulated in the Ilmenau Interactive Immersive Technologies Center. The Virtual Reality Lab thus offers state-of-the-art technology for researching innovative virtual and augmented reality technologies and their applications: from the simulation of virtual soundscapes to the realistic evaluation of hearing aids and the development of immersive computer games.

The idyllic sound of the rainforest, the noisy soundscape of a pulsating city or a visit to a large concert hall - in the upgraded VR lab at the Ilmenau Interactive Immersive Technologies Center (I3TC ), you can immerse yourself in a wide variety of acoustic landscapes. Research in Media Engineering students Christian Ziener and Niklas Edelmann have made this possible by upgrading the room to the latest international standards.

In a media project, the two students precisely coordinated 77 tweeters and woofers in the VR Lab. Their goal: to offer a person in the middle of the room the ideal sound experience. The key to this was the precise alignment of the respective playback channels to the so-called sweet spot, the point of optimal sound reproduction, i.e. the center of the room in their application. In their work, the students have pre-installed certain speaker settings, but as these can also be flexibly adjusted, the possibilities of the high-tech lab are almost limitless. The option of using fixed loudspeaker configurations or flexible audio playback, in which individual sounds can be precisely positioned in the room, is exceptional and can only be found in very few acoustics labs worldwide.

In the Virtual Reality Lab at TU Ilmenau, which was upgraded with the support of the Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology, any conceivable listening environment can now be realistically simulated - in all current playback standards: from simple stereo setups to complex acoustic systems such as 22.2 or Ambisonics, which are also used in modern cinemas. This means that the listening lab complies with the recommended international standards of the International Telecommunication Union.

In future, students will receive practical training in modern audio systems and standards in the VR Lab. For example, they will learn the basics of acoustics in practical application, how to measure and set up loudspeakers and how to implement and use immersive audio technologies. The laboratory also opens up a wide range of research opportunities for the development of new virtual and augmented reality technologies and their applications: from the simulation of virtual soundscapes to the realistic evaluation of hearing aids and immersive computer games.