Impact of a Speaker Head Rotation on the Far-end Listening Situation

Abstract:
Speech communication and dialog systems inside vehicles are usually optimized for a speaker in the driver’s seat who is permanently facing forward. However while driving, a speaker does repeatedly rotate his head left and right, which changes the properties of the signal picked up by the microphone. This work analyzes to what extent such a speaker head rotation impacts the signal in terms of frequency content, listening quality, and listening effort. By presenting a simple method for compensating the rotation effects and by combining this method with noise reduction and band limitation of the signals, an analysis of the far-end listening situation with and without speaker head rotation compensation is achieved.