Development of gulfstream acoustics simulator

An acoustic simulator has been developed at Gulfstream Aerospace Corp. to evaluate aircraft interior acoustic environments. Many acoustic simulators developed in the past were based on headphones, but they could not be used to evaluate communication between passengers. Ambisonics and wavefield synthesis are popular methods to recreate sound fields in a 3D space, but they are either limited in the size of the recreated sound field or require great number of speakers. Therefore, a modal-based approach was used to recreate the sound field inside the Gulfstream acoustics simulator. This paper will discuss the construction of the simulator mockup, the analysis to determine the speaker placement, the test to measure the acoustic environment, and the hardware and software systems to control the simulator playback. The acoustic simulator will be used to demonstrate the acoustic environment on different aircraft in different flight conditions, evaluate the effect of improvement options, and develop advanced technologies to create finest aviation experience.