Mark Poletti

Distinguished Scientist

Applied Technologies

Audio and acoustic engineering

My expertise is in audio engineering, acoustics and signal processing. These have been applied to a number of commercial products. I have also produced a significant publication record.

I am the inventor of the technology underlying the Meyer Constellation system for the electroacoustic enhancement of room acoustics. More recently, I have been working in microphone array processing and have collaborated with the New Zealand company Dotterel Technologies to develop an innovative shotgun microphone that is now winning international awards.

I’m also working on virtual reality sound recording solutions using novel microphone arrays.

Areas of expertise

Acoustics
Surround sound and sound reproduction systems
Personal (multizone) sound systems
Microphone array design using digital MEMs microphones and FPGA processing
Diffraction (boundary element) modelling and diffraction-compensated beamformer design for non-spherical microphone arrays
Electroacoustic room enhancement systems
Signal processing algorithms for virtual reality (soundbars, crosstalk cancellation) and music applications
Digital signal processing
Analogue electronics

Education

BSc Physics, University of Auckland, 1982
MSc Physics, University of Auckland, 1984
PhD Acoustics, University of Auckland, 2001

Memberships and awards

Senior Member IEEE
Member Audio Engineering Society
Member Acoustical Society of America
Member Acoustical Society New Zealand
2021: Science New Zealand Award, Individual/Lifetime Achievement
2012: Cooper Medal: Physics and engineering award for best single account of original research, particularly benefitting New Zealand, for installation of Constellation system in the Aotea Center, Auckland,
2001: Auckland University Prize for best Thesis, Faculty of Architecture
2000: NZ Royal Society Science and Technology award for the development of the VRA system

Selected publications

“A superfast Toeplitz matrix inversion method for single- and multi-channel inverse filters and its application to room equalization,” M. A. Poletti and P. D. Teal, IEEE/ACM Trans Audio, Speech, Language Proc. 29, pp 3144–3157, 2021 DOI 10.1109/TASLP.2021.3120650
“Spherical expansions of sound radiation from resilient and rigid disks with reduced error,” M. A. Poletti, J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 144 (3), pp 1180–1189, September 2018
”Personal sound zones,” T. Betlehem, W. Zhang, M. A. Poletti and T. D. Abhayapala, IEEE Sig. Proc. Mag., pp 81-91, March 2015
“Three dimensional surround sound systems based on spherical harmonics,” M. A. Poletti, J. Audio Eng. Soc., 53 (11), pp 1004-1025, November 2005
“The analysis of a general assisted reverberation system,” M. A. Poletti, Acta Acustica 84, pp 766-775, July/August 1998