On the Errors of the Phased Beam Tracing Method for the Room Acoustic Analysis

To overcome the mid frequency limitation of geometrical acoustic techniques, the phased geometrical method was suggested by introducing the phase information into the sound propagation from the source. By virtue of phase information, the phased tracing method has a definite benefit in taking the interference phenomenon at mid frequencies into account. Still, this analysis technique has suffered from difficulties in dealing with low frequency phenomena, so called, wave nature of sound. At low frequencies, diffraction at corners, edges, and obstacles can cause errors in simulating the transfer function and the impulse response. Due to the use of real valued absorption coefficient, simulated results have shown a discrepancy with measured data. Thus, incorrect phase of the reflection characteristic of a wall should be corrected. In this work, the uniform theory of diffraction was integrated into the phased beam tracing method (PBTM) and the result was compared to the ordinary PBTM. By changing the phase of the reflection coefficient, effects of phase information were investigated. Incorporating such error compensation methods, the acoustic prediction by PBTM can be further extended to low frequency range with improved accuracy in the room acoustic field.