Neural Impedance Boundary (NeIB): a neural-network based framework for acoustic surface impedance estimation utilizing sparse measurement data

Amidst recent advancements in the 3D digital representation that have significantly enhanced the modeling of geometric attributes of pre-existing environments, accurate estimation of acoustic boundary conditions remains a complex challenge. This paper presents a novel way to determine what we refer to as a neural boundary field, using physics-informed neural networks (PINN). The aim is to estimate the surface impedance measured in-situ by utilizing several points of sound field pressure. This approach couples the Helmholtz equation with automatic differentiation in the PINN framework to estimate accurately the surface impedance using a hybrid modeling approach where measurement data and domain knowledge in the form of equations for the acoustic waves are combined. As a proof-of-concept, we train the neural networks using 2D sound field data obtained from high-fidelity numerical acoustical simulations that incorporate actual surface materials parameters. We discuss the measurement techniques associated with this method and outline our vision for its application to 3D scene reconstructions in the future.