Nils Meyer-Kahlen: Audio for AR as a new challenge for Virtual Acoustics

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When: POSTPONED. New date to be arranged. 

Where: The Atrium (G.10), Alison House, 12 Nicholson Sq, University of Edinburgh Title: Audio for AR as a new challenge for Virtual Acoustics Speaker: Dr. Nils Meyer-Kahlen (Imperial College London) Abstract Augmented Reality (AR) telepresence—or holographic calling—introduces new and demanding challenges for virtual acoustics. In this talk, I will highlight that high-quality audio rendering for AR relies on components such as head-tracked binaural rendering with appropriate HRTFs, transparent headphones, blind room-acoustic estimation, and efficient reverberation engines. I will discuss paradigms for perceptually evaluating audio for AR based on the emergence of auditory reality illusions rather than perceptual indistinguishability and the perceptual limits of cross-modal matching. By presenting a series of perceptual experiments conducted over the past few years, I will argue for the importance of developing audio for AR technology with clear perceptual goals in mind.

Bio
Nils Meyer-Kahlen is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Audio Experience Design group at Imperial College London. Prior to his current six-month post in London, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the Acoustics Lab in the Department of Information and Communications Engineering at Aalto University, where he also completed his PhD in 2024. Before moving to Finland in 2019, he obtained his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Electrical Engineering and Audio Engineering from the University of Technology and the University of Music and Performing Arts, Graz, Austria. He interned as a research scientist at Reality Labs Research in 2022 and 2024. His research focuses on virtual acoustics for augmented reality, always keeping technological development and human perception in sight.