[UK] PhD Studentship in Compressed Sensing of Audio Scenes - University of London
PhD Studentship in Compressed Sensing of Audio Scenes School of Electronic Engineering and Computer ScienceQueen Mary, University of London
Applications are invited for a 3-year PhD studentship to investigate the analysis of musical and environmental audio, using the technique of compressed sensing, to commence in October 2008, or as soon as possible thereafter.
Compressed sensing is a new technique concerned with reducing the number of measurements necessary to reconstruct an object. It based on the principle that the object has some underlying sparse representation, i.e. that it can be described using a small number of non-zero coefficients. Audio scenes may be sparse in the time domain, if each source sounds only rarely; in the frequency domain, if the sound sources use a small number of frequencies; or in the spatial domain, if there are only a small number of discrete sound sources. The aim of the PhD project is to investigate compressed sensing techniques to extract audio from such sound scenes, and compare with existing methods for audio source separation and audio enhancement.
This PhD will be supervised by Dr Mark D Plumbley (www.elec.qmul.ac.uk/people/markp), and will take place in the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science at Queen Mary University of London, within the world-leading Centre for Digital Music (although the research is not limited to musical audio). The work will form part of a new programme of research in “Machine Listening using Sparse Representations”, supported by a Leadership Fellowship from the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). This is to be a concerted programme of research in machine listening (the automatic analysis and understanding of sounds from the world around us), using methods from sparse representations, and to establish machine listening as a key enabling technology to improve our ability to interact with the world.
Eligibility
Applicants must have a first degree in electronic engineering, mathematical science, physics, statistics, computer science, or allied disciplines (minimum: good 2:1 or equivalent), and excellent mathematical and programming skills. Previous experience of digital signal processing of audio is desirable, although not mandatory.
Funding applies to: Open to applicants from a range of countries
Funding notes:
The 3-year studentship will comprise full fees for “home” (UK/EU) students and an annual stipend commencing at £14,600 including London Allowance (stipends are exempt of UK tax), subject to satisfactory progress.
Application deadline: 19 September 2008
Contacts and how to apply
Academic contact:
For informal enquiries, please contact Dr Mark D Plumbley, Queen Mary, University of London mark.plumbley@elec.qmul.ac.uk.
Administrative contact and how to apply:
For application forms and information on how to apply, see http://www.elec.qmul.ac.uk/study/phd/res-stud.htm.
