NIME 2014 (New Interfaces for Musical Expression)

Acoustic Localisation as an Alternative to Positioning Principles in Applications presented at NIME 2001-2013
Dominik Schlienger and Sakari Tervo
Sibelius Academy, Aalto University

Short Paper


This paper provides a rationale for choosing acoustic localisation techniques as an alternative to other principles to provide spatial positions in interactive locative audio applications (ILAA). By comparing positioning technology in existing ILAAs to the expected performance of acoustic positioning systems (APS), we can evaluate if APS would perform equivalently in a particular application. In this paper, the titles of NIME conference proceedings from 2001 to 2013 were searched for presentations on ILAA using positioning technology. Over 80 relevant articles were found. For each of the systems we evaluated if and why APS would be a contender or not. The results showed that for over 73 percent of the reviewed applications, APS could possibly provide competitive alternatives and at very low cost.