Computing and Audio Research Laboratory
The Computing and Audio Research Laboratory (CARlab) is home to specialist facilities and testing supporting research in acoustic signal processing, spatial audio, machine learning, ultrasound and electrical impedance tomography.
CARlab also houses a wide range of instruments to facilitate research into reconfigurable computing, machine learning and nanoscale interfaces. These include the Cave Automatic Virtual Environment, listening room and measurement fabrication facility.
Cave automatic virtual environment
Our cave automatic virtual environment (CAVE) is an augmented and virtual reality environment consisting of a half-hexagon-shaped immersive virtual reality system housed in an anechoic room (10m x 13m x 4m). Along with 3D video projection equipment and the array of loudspeakers, it comprises a tracking system and head-mounted display systems.
Concentric spherical microphone array
The dual concentric spherical microphone array (SMA) is the first of its kind in the world and serves to provide advantages in terms of the frequency range of operation.
The 3D-printed design comprises of 32 microphones on the inner sphere and 32 microphones on the outer sphere.
This equipment also assists in sound separation, sound localisation and acoustic holography.
Sound experiment booth
The sound experiment booth is an acoustically-treated and shielded environment with a ‘room within a room’ construction for isolation.
Measurement, electronics and ultrasound facility
Our measurement, electronics and ultrasound facility includes a Verasonics 64 LE ultrasound machine (128 channels transmit, 64 channels receive) and an array of electronic measurement facilities.