Robust FIR Filters for Wireless Low-frequency Sound Zones

Low frequency personal sound zones can be created by controlling the sound pressure in separate spatially confined regions. The performance of a sound zone system using wireless communication may be degraded due to potential packet losses. In this paper, we propose robust FIR filters for low-frequency sound zone system by incorporating information about the expected packet losses into the design. A simulation study with eight loudspeakers surrounding two control regions shows that the proposed filters can improve the contrast and the sound quality when packet losses occur, with only a slight degradation in performance even when there is no packet loss. With the proposed filters, it is possible to gain 2dB higher contrast on average across the frequency range 20-200Hz relative to the original filters when packet loss rate is 5%.