Project description
Towards a radical shift in audio technology
Sound is one of the main dimensions of any computing service. Unfortunately, today the quality of sound depends on single user devices and usually needs constant management or adjustment. The EU-funded SOUNDS project aims to bring a revolutionary change by introducing a new paradigm into audio technology. This new standard will be based on the growing popularity of network-driven models offering audio as a service and will replace the limited capabilities and constraints of a single user device, bringing audio technology to a new level. For this reason, the project will conduct advanced interdisciplinary research and will train a new generation of qualified researchers with a transdisciplinary and international scientific profile.
Objective
The SOUNDS European Training Network (ETN) revolves around a new and promising paradigm coined as Service- Oriented, Ubiquitous, Network-Driven Sound. Inspired by the ubiquity of mobile and wearable devices capable of capturing, processing, and reproducing sound, the SOUNDS ETN aims to bring audio technology to a new level by exploiting network-enabled cooperation between devices. We envision the next generation of audio devices to be capable of providing enhanced hearing assistance, creating immersive audio experience, enabling advanced voice control and much more, by seamlessly exchanging signals and parameter settings, and spatially analyzing and reproducing sound jointly with other nearby audio devices and infrastructure. Moreover, such functionality should be self-organizing, flexible, and scalable, requiring minimal user interaction for adapting to changes in the environment or network. It is anticipated that this paradigm will eventually result in an entirely new way of designing and using audio technology, by considering audio as a service enabled through shared infrastructure, rather than as a device-specific functionality limited by the capabilities and constraints of a single user device.
To attain this paradigm shift in audio technology not only requires additional research but also calls for a new generation of qualified researchers with a transdisciplinary and international scientific profile, strong collaborative research and research management skills, and the intersectoral expertise needed to carry research results from academia to industry. It is believed that the SOUNDS ETN will offer the best possible framework for achieving these goals, by organizing advanced interdisciplinary research training, developing solid transferable skills, and providing intersectoral and international experience in a network of qualified and complementary industrial and academic institutions.
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Programme(s)
Coordinator
3000 Leuven
Belgium