EchoScan: Scanning Complex Room Geometries via Acoustic Echoes

Abstract

Accurate estimation of indoor space geometries is vital for constructing precise digital twins, whose broad industrial applications include navigation in unfamiliar environments and efficient evacuation planning, particularly in low-light conditions. This study introduces EchoScan, a deep neural network model that utilizes acoustic echoes to perform room geometry inference. Conventional sound-based techniques rely on estimating geometry-related room parameters such as wall position and room size, thereby limiting the diversity of inferable room geometries. Contrarily, EchoScan overcomes this limitation by directly inferring room floorplan maps and height maps, thereby enabling it to handle rooms with complex shapes, including curved walls. The segmentation task for predicting floorplan and height maps enables the model to leverage both low- and high-order reflections. The use of high-order reflections further allows EchoScan to infer complex room shapes when some walls of the room are unobservable from the position of an audio device. Herein, EchoScan was trained and evaluated using RIRs synthesized from complex environments, including the Manhattan and Atlanta layouts, employing a practical audio device configuration compatible with commercial, off-the-shelf devices.