BRUDEX Database: Binaural Room Impulse Responses with Uniformly Distributed External Microphones

There is an emerging need for comparable data for multi-microphone processing, particularly in acoustic sensor networks. However, commonly available databases are often limited in the spatial diversity of the microphones or only allow for particular signal processing tasks. In this paper, we present a database of acoustic impulse responses and recordings for a binaural hearing aid setup, 36 spatially distributed microphones spanning a uniform grid of (5x5) m^2 and 12 source positions. This database can be used for a variety of signal processing tasks, such as (multi-microphone) noise reduction, source localization, and dereverberation, as the measurements were performed using the same setup for three different reverberation conditions (T_60≈{310, 510, 1300} ms). The usability of the database is demonstrated for a noise reduction task using a minimum variance distortionless response beamformer based on relative transfer functions, exploiting the availability of spatially distributed microphones.

An example how to load a impulse responses corresponding to the 'low' reverberation condition for the speaker located at 60 deg using MATLAB:
    dataStruct = loadRIR('low',60,1,<basePATH>);%<basePATH>: path where database is located on local machine
For further MATLAB examples, please consider "wrapper_loadDataFromDB.m" in the "matlabScripts.zip" archive file.

An example how to load a impulse responses corresponding to the 'low' reverberation condition for the speaker located at 60 deg using Python:
    dataloader = wrapper.BRUDEXDataloader()# <basePATH> is implicitly set to that path, where the file "wrapper.py" is located on local machine
    dataStruct = dataloader.load_rir(reverberation_condition='low', direction_of_arrival = 60, ha_av = 1,e_mic_run = None)
For further Python examples, please consider "main.py" in the "pythonScripts.zip" archive file.

Caution: We noticed some problems with the download of the databse when using the command line (e.g., via the zenodo_get, wget, or curl commands). These problems don't seem to appear when downloading the files with the "Download" buttons on the website instead.

Caution 2: When processing microphone signals, which are recorded with microphones that are placed *behind* loudspeakers, one can expect direct-path problems.

Caution 3: For the recordings of the noise signals, four loudspeakers were placed at about 170 cm from (and facing) the corners of the room. That is why the noise is approximately spatially diffuse only in the vicinity of the center of the room and rather spatially coherent in the corners of the room.

Caution 4: Oppposed to Zenodos information, the database does not contain 3 TB of data but about 200 GB.

Reference:

D. Fejgin, W. Middelberg, and S. Doclo,
“BRUDEX database: Binaural room impulse responses with uniformly distributed external microphones,”
in Proc. ITG Conference on Speech Communication, Aachen, Germany, Sep. 2023, pp. 1–5.

@InProceedings{Fejgin2023,
    author    = {D. {Fejgin} and W. {Middelberg} and S. {Doclo}},
    booktitle = {Proc. ITG Conference on Speech Communication},
    title     = {{BRUDEX} Database: Binaural Room Impulse Responses with Uniformly Distributed External Microphones},
    pages     = {1-5},
    month     = {Sep.},
    year      = {2023},
    address   = {Aachen, Germany}
}