Design, construction, and evaluation of a binaural dummy head

Abstract

Binaural-dummy-heads are often used as standard measurement devices where modeling of the human binaural hearing system is desired. The binaural-dummy-head imitates a human head (and torso) which is used in binaural recording as well as research areas such as hearing aids, sound localization, noise measurements, etc. Commercially available binaural heads are not economically efficient for some purposes. This paper outlines a less expensive binaural dummy head built using ANSI/ASA S3.36-2012 standard as a reference as part of an independent coursework. A hard plastic mannequin was used as head and torso, and the two ears were real human ear replicas casted out of water-based alginate gel. The complex Head-Related Transfer Functions (HRTF) of our dummy head were measured in an anechoic chamber to evaluate its spectral and directional properties and were compared to the same properties of the standard commercial dummy head.