Spherical Harmonic Beamforming–Based Ambisonics Encoding Method in Frequency and Time Domain

Citation:

You Y, Qian Y, Qu T, Wang B, Lv X. Spherical Harmonic Beamforming–Based Ambisonics Encoding Method in Frequency and Time Domain. Journal of the Audio Engineering Society [Internet]. 2026;74(6):417-429.

摘要:

Implementing Higher-Order Ambisonics (HOA) on consumer devices is hindered by their sparse, irregular microphone arrays, which challenge conventional methods with issues like spatial aliasing and ill-conditioning. This paper proposes a unified Spherical Harmonic Beamforming (SHB-AE) framework that recasts HOA encoding as a spatial filtering problem, enabling robust, signal-independent solutions. We develop two approaches: a frequency-domain (FD) method with compensation for high-frequency artifacts, and a time-domain (TD) methodthat holistically optimizes broadband FIR filters for enhanced stability. The framework is inherently scalable, allowing on-demand order expansion. Using a measured smartphone array, comprehensive objective and subjective evaluations demonstrate the clear superiority of theTD method. It excels in signal fidelity, spatial accuracy, and temporal consistency, outperforming baseline and FD approaches. The TD method also maintains its advantage in adverse conditions, showing remarkable robustness against noise, reverberation, and multi-source environments.It provides a practical, high-performance pathway for enabling high-fidelity spatial audio capture on ubiquitous consumer devices without requiring complex signal analysis or large datasets.

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