The birth of intelligent passive room acoustic technology: a qualitative review

Purpose - Informed by acoustic design standards, the built environments are designed with single reverberation times (RTs), a trade-off between long and short RTs needed for different space functions. A range of RTs should be achievable in spaces to optimise the acoustic comfort in different aural situations. This paper proclaims a novel concept: Intelligent passive room acoustic technology (IPRAT), which achieves real-time room acoustic optimisation through the integration of passive variable acoustic technology (PVAT) and acoustic scene classification (ASC). ASC can intelligently identify changing aural situations, and PVAT can physically vary the RT. Design/methodology/approach - A qualitative best-evidence synthesis method is used to review the available literature on PVAT and ASC. Findings - First, it is highlighted that dynamic spaces should be designed with varying RTs. The review then exposes a gap of intelligently adjusting RT according to changing building function. A solution is found: IPRAT, which integrates PVAT and ASC to uniquely fill this literature gap. Originality/value - The development, functionality, benefits and challenges of IPRAT offer a holistic understanding of the state-of-the-art IPRAT, and a use case example is provided. Going forward, it is concluded that IPRAT can be prototyped and its impact on acoustic comfort can be quantified.

Automated summary

This paper introduces the concept of Intelligent Passive Room Acoustic Technology (IPRAT), which achieves real-time room acoustic optimization through the integration of Passive Variable Acoustic Technology (PVAT) and Acoustic Scene Classification (ASC). The study highlights the importance of designing dynamic spaces with varying reverberation times (RTs) and fills the gap in intelligently adjusting RTs according to changing building function.