Signal Processing and Acoustics

The research field signal processing and acoustics is divided into the topics of spatial audio, psychoacoustics and audio-signal processing. These key strengths emerged from the original task of the institute and the challenges which came about in the course of time.

Signal analysis and signal transformation as well as information extraction and sound synthesis, both in the time-frequency domain as well as spatially, provide a fruitful basis for composers and musicologists. Psychoacoustics makes use of signal processing in the creation of objective auditory models and helps to assess the processes of analysis, modification and synthesis in practice in a way corresponding to our hearing.

Apart from surround capture and synthesis of acoustic scenes, research is undertaken regarding the sound radiation of individual sound sources, e.g. musical instruments, in order to capture and reproduce them in their entirety. In reproducing acoustic images, methods involving both loudspeakers and binaural methods are implemented.

The audio-signal processing group at IEM is in particular concentrating on sound analysis, sound modelling and the extraction of musical or speech-relevant features and characteristics. The topic comprises methods of time-frequency processing, multi-rate processing and adaptive filtering.

Our research activities in psychoacoustics comprise experimental design and evaluation methods. Furthermore, objective assessment models are being developed which enable prediction of subjective feeling of physical acoustic stimuli. Of central interest is which acoustic signal characteristics are the cause of different auditory impressions and perceptions and to what degree they can be predicted.