Harman Wants to Use Robotic Speakers to Make VR Sound More Real

Get ready for robotic speakers to whizz around in your living room while you are having fun in virtual reality: Samsung subsidiary Harman got a patent awarded this week to map sounds from virtual reality (VR) games and experiences to one or more robotic speakers.The patented technology is meant to deal with a shortcoming of traditional speaker systems for VR: They just don’t work that well for spatial audio.“Audio content that is outputted via static audio devices may not accurately represent the virtual environment and/or virtual objects included in the virtual environment,” the patent reads in part. “For example, sounds outputted by stationary speakers may not accurately reflect the distance, direction, and/or motion between the user and a virtual object included in the virtual environment.” As a remedy for this, Harman is looking to map VR soundscapes to robotic speakers, and then move them around in a room. According to the patent, this could reproduce a wide range of acoustic phenomenons, including objects emitting sounds themselves, as well as walls that sound can bounce off, physical obstructions that can absorb sound, and more.