Physiologically accurate audio processing in cochlear implants. This project proposes to use a physiologically motivated computational model of the cochlea, which along with newly developed cochlear-implant electrode technology will produce the next quantum improvement in speech intelligibility and quality of hearing for implant recipients.
Making demonstrably reliable forensic voice comparison a practical everyday reality in Australia. To assist Australian law-enforcement agencies and courts in the process of the conviction of the guilty and the exoneration of the innocent, this project will develop and test a practical and demonstrably reliable forensic voice comparison system for use with Australian voices. This will allow forensic scientists to produce reliable strength of evidence statements for presentation in court using the ....Making demonstrably reliable forensic voice comparison a practical everyday reality in Australia. To assist Australian law-enforcement agencies and courts in the process of the conviction of the guilty and the exoneration of the innocent, this project will develop and test a practical and demonstrably reliable forensic voice comparison system for use with Australian voices. This will allow forensic scientists to produce reliable strength of evidence statements for presentation in court using the same evaluative framework as used with DNA. In addition, application of the system during criminal investigations may lead to the refocussing of investigations on other suspects, or may help leverage guilty pleas, thus saving substantial time and money.Read moreRead less
Speech recognition adaptation for low resource populations. Automatic speech recognition is an essential attribute of mobile devices and consumer electronics. Unfortunately, as these systems are trained with adult speech, they perform poorly when used by children and people with speaking difficulties. The lack of available training speech from these groups makes developing models for them difficult. We will investigate efficient model adaptation methods that use minimal training data to adapt ex ....Speech recognition adaptation for low resource populations. Automatic speech recognition is an essential attribute of mobile devices and consumer electronics. Unfortunately, as these systems are trained with adult speech, they perform poorly when used by children and people with speaking difficulties. The lack of available training speech from these groups makes developing models for them difficult. We will investigate efficient model adaptation methods that use minimal training data to adapt existing adult speech recognition models for use with children and people with speaking difficulties. The intended outcomes will improve access to automatic speech recognition systems for Australians whose communication with speech-controlled environmental and educational devices is currently restricted.Read moreRead less
Individualized cochlear implant sound coding: Optimized algorithms for better hearing. One in six Australians is affected by hearing loss. Hearing loss impacts on a person's educational and employment opportunities, resulting in a significant economic impact upon Australia. Over 10% of people with hearing impairment have a severe or profound hearing loss and may be candidates for a cochlear implant. Current cochlear implant sound processing only offers limited benefit to users. This project repr ....Individualized cochlear implant sound coding: Optimized algorithms for better hearing. One in six Australians is affected by hearing loss. Hearing loss impacts on a person's educational and employment opportunities, resulting in a significant economic impact upon Australia. Over 10% of people with hearing impairment have a severe or profound hearing loss and may be candidates for a cochlear implant. Current cochlear implant sound processing only offers limited benefit to users. This project represents a truly innovative pathway forward in the development of cochlear implant sound coding that could substantially increase the speech perception of users, enabling these people to become and remain active and productive members of our community.Read moreRead less
Building a Talking Head via Dynamic & 3D-Static, and Age- & Ethnically-Varied Databases: Perceptibility and Acceptability. This project will provide cutting edge realistic, perceptible talking head animation. Based on rich 3D face motion and static face databases, it will allow the study of the facial structure of specific groups of people, and the creation of a lasting cultural heritage of faces. Information in these databases will be useful for research in high-quality 3D face reconstruction ....Building a Talking Head via Dynamic & 3D-Static, and Age- & Ethnically-Varied Databases: Perceptibility and Acceptability. This project will provide cutting edge realistic, perceptible talking head animation. Based on rich 3D face motion and static face databases, it will allow the study of the facial structure of specific groups of people, and the creation of a lasting cultural heritage of faces. Information in these databases will be useful for research in high-quality 3D face reconstruction, with applications as wide as multimodal Biometric Identification, finding lost children, and security systems. The novel methods in this project will also advance auditory-visual speech and emotion research with particular commercial applications in telecommunications, human-machine interfaces, foreign language teaching, humanoid development, animation, and film.Read moreRead less
Fundamental Studies in System Identification. To operate a dynamic system such as a chemical process plant or an economy one needs two things; the equations describing the system; a way of regulating the system to provide desired outcomes. System identification provides the first; control engineering design provides the second. This proposal addresses three important problems in system identification and control. Firstly since the equations can never be known precisely we aim to determine what i ....Fundamental Studies in System Identification. To operate a dynamic system such as a chemical process plant or an economy one needs two things; the equations describing the system; a way of regulating the system to provide desired outcomes. System identification provides the first; control engineering design provides the second. This proposal addresses three important problems in system identification and control. Firstly since the equations can never be known precisely we aim to determine what is the best one can do? Secondly to provide then tight error bounds for the control design;
thirdly to develop new methods for some hitherto unresolved problems in system identification.Read moreRead less
Joint System Identification for Point Processes and Time-series. In various application areas such as neurophysiology, earthquake modeling, price spikes in electricity markets, the data of interest are point processes (aka sequences of events) or combinations of point processes and analog signals. To understand the underlying subject of interest we need to be able to extract the maximum information from these observation sequences. The current tools for doing this are very limited. This resear ....Joint System Identification for Point Processes and Time-series. In various application areas such as neurophysiology, earthquake modeling, price spikes in electricity markets, the data of interest are point processes (aka sequences of events) or combinations of point processes and analog signals. To understand the underlying subject of interest we need to be able to extract the maximum information from these observation sequences. The current tools for doing this are very limited. This research program will develop the complex signal processing and system methodology needed to create a suitable tool set.Read moreRead less
Feedback Architectures with Parallel Communication Channels. Feedback control is an enabling, though often hidden, technology. For example, without control loops, cars, mining and manufacturing plants cannot operate in an efficient and safe manner. To reduce costs, there has been a trend to use general purpose communication systems, such as WiFi, for feedback control. These communication systems have only limited capacity and reliability. This can lead to performance degradation and system failu ....Feedback Architectures with Parallel Communication Channels. Feedback control is an enabling, though often hidden, technology. For example, without control loops, cars, mining and manufacturing plants cannot operate in an efficient and safe manner. To reduce costs, there has been a trend to use general purpose communication systems, such as WiFi, for feedback control. These communication systems have only limited capacity and reliability. This can lead to performance degradation and system failure. The current project aims at proposing novel robust networked control system architectures. Our results will be useful to allow industries to use standard communications technology for control, thus, alleviating costs associated with developing dedicated application specific communication infrastructure.Read moreRead less
Development of Identification Methods for Nonlinear Dynamical Systems. It is widely recognized that nonlinear systems theory will mark a new era of control science in the coming decade, and will be used in various types of applications. Driven by such immense opportunities and needs, identification of nonlinear systems is emerging as a vital, active area of research. The success of this project will enhance Australia's leading role in the international control community. The training of the post ....Development of Identification Methods for Nonlinear Dynamical Systems. It is widely recognized that nonlinear systems theory will mark a new era of control science in the coming decade, and will be used in various types of applications. Driven by such immense opportunities and needs, identification of nonlinear systems is emerging as a vital, active area of research. The success of this project will enhance Australia's leading role in the international control community. The training of the postdoctoral research associates will generate the expertise needed to maintain the involvement of the coming generation in cutting-edge technological advancement. The project will strengthen research activities in Australia through strong international collaborations.Read moreRead less