Rendering of directional sources through loudspeaker arrays based on plane wave decomposition

In this paper we present a technique for the rendering of directional sources by means of loudspeaker arrays. The proposed methodology is based on a decomposition of the sound field in terms of plane waves. Within this framework the directivity of the source is naturally included in the rendering problem, therefore accommodating the directivity into the picture becomes much simpler. For this purpose, the loudspeaker array is subdivided into overlapping sub-arrays, each generating a plane wave component. The individual plane waves are then weighed by the desired directivity pattern. Simulations and experimental results show that the proposed technique is able to reproduce the sound field of directional sources with an improved accuracy with respect to existing techniques.