Interior and exterior sound field control using two dimensional higher-order variable-directivity sources

Spatial sound reproduction systems aim to produce a desired sound field over a volume of space. At high frequencies, the number of loudspeakers required is prohibitive. This paper shows that the use of loudspeakers with up to Nth order directivity allows reproduction over N times the bandwidth and produces a significantly attenuated exterior sound field. If the constraint on exterior cancellation of the field is removed, reproduction is possible over approximately 2N times the bandwidth. The use of higher order loudspeakers thus allows a significant reduction in the number of loudspeaker units, at the expense of increased complexity in each unit. For completeness, results are included for the generation of an exterior field with or without cancellation of the interior field.