SPATIAL SOUND SYSTEM TO AID INTERACTIVITY IN A HUMAN CENTRED DESIGN EVALUATION OF AN AIRCRAFT CABIN ENVIRONMENT

There is a lot of research towards the concept of 3D sound in virtual reality environments. With the incipient growth in the significance of designing more realistic and immersive experiences for a Human Centred Design (HCD) approach, sound perception is believed to add an interactive element in maximizing the human perspective. In this context, the concept of an audio-visual interaction model between a passenger and a crew member in an immersive aircraft cabin environment is studied and presented in this paper. The study focuses on the design and usability of spatial sources as an interactive component in a regional aircraft cabin design for Human in the Loop evaluation. Sound sources are placed among the virtual manikins acting as passengers with the aim of building a realistic virtual environment for the user enacting the role of a crew member. The crew member, while walking throughthe cabin can orient and identify the position of the sound source inside the immersive Cabin environment. We review the 3D sound approaches and cues for sound spatialization in a virtual environment and propose that audio-visual interactivity aids the immersive Human centred design analysis.