MMI703 COMMUNICATION ACOUSTICS

Course Objectives

This course aims to provide knowledge on several topics related to the usage of sound for the purposes of human-to-human, human-to-machine, and machine-to- human communication. More specifically the course covers aspects of acoustics and human hearing at a theoretical level as well as practical audio signal processing applications such as spatial audio systems, audio and speech coding, text-to-speech synthesis. The course aims to balance theory and practice in that it will involve students implementing some of the described algorithms, auditory models and replicate some of the auditory effects to be explained during the lectures using high-level languages such as Python (including SciPy and NumPy) and/or Matlab. 

Course Content

This course aims to provide knowledge on several topics related to the usage of sound for the purpose of human-to-human, human-to-machine, and machine-to-human communication. More specifically the course covers aspects of acoustics and human hearing at a theoretical level as well as practical audio signal processing applications such as spatial audio systems, audio and speech coding, text-to-speech synthesis. The course aims to balance theory and practice in that it will involve students implementing some of the described algorithms, auditory models and replicate some of the auditory effects to be explained during the lectures using high-level kanguages such as Python (including SciPy and NumPy) and or Matlab.

Course Learning Outcomes

Via this course and by the successful completion thereof, the students will:

• Learn the fundamentals of linear acoustics and human hearing
• Learn about applications of signal processing in auditory modelling
• Learn about room acoustics and its application in spatial audio systems
• Learn about human speech generation mechanism and its modelling
• Apply the theory and concepts learned during the course in a real-world application via a term project
• Learn and apply the concept of reproducible research