In this paper, the use of a wireless acoustic sensor network (WASN) for the estimation and equalization of room acoustics is proposed as a flexible and promising alternative to the traditional wired implementations. We consider a multiple-point equalization problem based on a common-acoustical-pole (CAP) room model. Instead of collecting microphone signals in a central processing unit to compute the CAP model estimate in a centralized fashion, we deploy a large number of autonomous nodes with local sensing, processing, and communication capabilities to solve the CAP model estimation problem in a distributed manner. Even though the WASN nodes are restricted to exchange information with neighboring nodes only, the use of a distributed averaging algorithm results in a CAP model estimate with an accuracy and equalization performance comparable to a wired implementation. © 2012 EURASIP.

sponsorship: T. van Waterschoot is a Postdoctoral Fellow of the Research Founda- tion Flanders (FWOVlaanderen). This research work was carried out at the ESAT Laboratory of KU Leuven, in the frame of KU Leuven Research Council CoE EF/05/006 Optimization in Engineering (OPTEC) and PFV/10/002 (OPTEC), Concerted Research Action GOA-MaNet, the Belgian Programme on Interuniversity Attraction Poles initiated by the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office IUAP P6/04 Dynamical systems, control and optimization (DYSCO) 20072011, Research Project IBBT, and Research Project FWO nr. G.0600.08 Signal processing and network design for wireless acoustic sensor networks. The scientific responsibility is assumed by its authors. (KU Leuven Research Council|CoE EF/05/006, OPTEC|PFV/10/002, Belgian Federal Science Policy Office|IUAP P6/04, IBBT, FWO|G.0600.08)