Nikolaos Moustakas

Supervising Committee:
Supervisor: Andreas Floros
Members: Nikolaos-Grigorios Kanellopoulos, Nikolaos-Alexandros Tatla

THESIS SUMMARY

The field of Augmented Reality Audio (ARA) has introduced the ARA mixer as a method to mix the real with the virtual environment. The goal of this dissertation is to upgrade the function of ARA mix legacy model through the integration of adaptation to control the auditory fluctuations of unpredictable real environment in typical ARA applications. We propose a new perceptual ARA mixer model which adapts the blending of auditory environments in terms of binaural loudness. Consequently, a new technique of real-time binaural loudness prediction through feature extraction was integrated to ARA mixer. The effectiveness of proposed model of ARA mixer was demonstrated and evaluated through qualitative and quantitative methods; thus, it was applied and evaluated in a typical ARA game. Results show that among ARA mix quality tests, subjects prefer adaptive ARA mix. Analysis of players’ performance under ARA game task shows that better success rates can be realized in adaptive mode of ARA mixer instead of legacy ARA mix model. We show that this approach to ARA mixer is significantly more efficient than legacy ARA mixer model and that it provides an improved interactive experience through the tasks of a typical ARA application like the ARA game.

Nikolaos Moustakas was born in 1987 in Piraeus. He has graduated from the Department of Audio & Visual Arts with an excellent grade. In 2021 he received the title of Doctor from the Dept. of Audio & Visual Arts with thesis title "Adaptive Augmented Reality Audio Environments using Dynamically Variable Sound Mixing". During the period of preparation of the thesis, he has served as an assistant lecturer of the Dept. Of Audio & Visual Arts for the courses "Acoustics and Psychoacoustics", "Digital Sound Processing", and "Sound Technology". He has participated in several international conferences and scientific journals while he has participated in 5 research and development projects. Finally, he is a member of the Audiovisual Signal Processing Laboratory of the Dept.of Audio & Visual Arts and his research interests are focused on psychoacoustics, acoustic augmented reality, digital audio signal processing, audio games.

Λίστα δημοσιεύσεων / Publications list

PUBLICATIONS IN INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS

[1] Rovithis, E., Moustakas, N., Floros, A., & Vogklis, K. (2019). Audio legends: Investigating sonic interaction in an augmented reality audio game. Multimodal Technologies and Interaction, 3(4), 73.

[2] Rovithis, E., Floros, A., Moustakas, N., Vogklis, K., & Kotsira, L. (2019). Bridging Audio and Augmented Reality towards a New Generation of Serious Audio-Only Games. Electronic Journal of e-Learning, 17(2), 144-156.

[3] Moustakas, N., Floros, A., Rovithis, E., & Vogklis, K. (2021). Prediction and Controlling of Auditory Perception in Augmented Environments. A Loudness-Based Dynamic Mixing Technique. Applied Sciences, 11(22), 10944.

PUBLICATIONS IN INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCES

[1] Grigoriou, N., Moustakas, N., Floros, A., & Kanellopoulos, N. (2008). dots: an Audio Entertainment Installation using Visual and Spatial-based Interaction. In Proceedings of the Audio Mostly Conference (pp. 112-116).

[2] Moustakas, N., Floros, A., & Kanellopoulos, N. (2009, October). Eidola: An interactive augmented reality audio-game prototype. In Audio Engineering Society Convention 127. Audio Engineering Society.

[3] Moustakas, N., Floros, A., & Grigoriou, N. (2011, May). Interactive audio realities: An augmented/mixed reality audio game prototype. In Audio Engineering Society Convention 130. Audio Engineering Society.

[4] Nikolaos Moustakas, Andreas Floros, Nikolaos-Grigorios Kanellopoulos, "Augmented Audio Reality as a Tool for the Development of Audio Games" - HELINA Audio Conference 2012, Corfu

[5] Moustakas, N., Floros, A., & Kapralos, B. (2016, September). An Augmented Reality Audio Live Network for Live Electroacoustic Music Concerts. In Audio Engineering Society Conference: 2016 AES International Conference on Audio for Virtual and Augmented Reality. Audio Engineering Society.

[6] Emmanuel Rovithis, Nikos Moustakas, Andreas Floros, Kostas Voglis, Acoustically Augmented Audio Games : a First Approach - HELINA Acoustics Conference 2018, Patras.

[7] Em. Rovithis, N. Moustakas and A. Floros, “Audio augmented reality games as a new educational approach", Proceedings of the 5th Acoustic Ecology Conference of the Hellenic Society of Acoustic Ecology, Kalamata, September 2018.

[8] Moustakas, N., Floros, A., Rovithis, E., & Vogklis, K. (2019, March). Augmented audio-only games: A new generation of immersive acoustic environments through advanced mixing. In Audio Engineering Society Convention 146. Audio Engineering Society.

[9] Moustakas, N., Rovithis, E., Vogklis, K., & Floros, A. (2020, October). Adaptive audio mixing for enhancing immersion in augmented reality audio games. In Companion Publication of the 2020 International Conference on Multimodal Interaction (pp. 220-227).

[10] Rovithis Emmanouil, Moustakas Nikolaos, Voglis Konstantinos & Floros Andreas: Audio Legends: Approaching the Educational Dimension of Acoustically Augmented Audio Games, 1st Panhellenic Conference – The educational game in formal and non-formal learning, November 2020

PARTICIPATION IN FESTIVAL COMMITTEES, CONFERENCES, SUMMER SCHOOLS

[1] Reviewer IEEE 22nd International Workshop on Multimedia Signal processing  (IEEE MMSP 2020) 21-24 September, Tampere, Finland.

[2] Reviewer IEEE 21st International Workshop on Multimedia Signal processing  (IEEE MMSP 2019) 27-29 September, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

[3] 10th  Audiovisual Festival, Department of Audio & Visual Arts, Ionian University, Member of the organizing committee, Corfu, May 2016

[4] Implementation of a concert with Augmented Reality Audio technology, as part of the Summer Academy of the Department of Music Studies, Ionian University, June 2014.

[5] Attended the Summer school on Game Audio, IEEE, 3-6/9/2012 Ankara, Turkey.