ERC Consolidator Grant SONORA (2017), European Research Council (ERC)

STADIUS Member: Toon van Waterschoot
Start date: 1/01/2018
End date: 31/12/2022
Type: Award

At the end of November, the European Research Council (ERC) has awarded a Consolidator Grant to prof. Toon van Waterschoot, who is currently a tenure-track assistant professor at the Faculty of Engineering Technology, Campus Group T. The €2 million grant will allow him to further expand his research activities on acoustic signal processing over the next five years. The ERC Grants are amongst the most prestigious international research grants, being awarded to European top researchers allowing them to carry out fundamental research at the frontiers of knowledge. More specifically the ERC Consolidator Grants are intended for mid-career researchers having obtained their PhD degree 7 to 12 years ago. Prof. Toon van Waterschoot is the first engineer at KU Leuven obtaining an ERC Consolidator Grant since this grant category was established in 2013.

The research grant is related to a research project that will be executed by prof. van Waterschoot and his team over the next five years. The project “The Spatial Dynamics of Room Acoustics (SONORA)” departs from the question how sound propagation in rooms can be modelled in case sound sources and observers are moving. Even if we are faced with such dynamic acoustic scenarios in everyday life, the current scientific understanding of the spatial dynamics of room acoustics is limited. The primary objectives of the SONORA project are therefore to develop efficient models for spatially dynamic room acoustics, and subsequently use these models to design novel measurement protocols and signal processing algorithms that can be employed in dynamic acoustic scenarios. In the long term, these fundamentally new results will facilitate a broad variety of applications in hearing technology, virtual reality, human-machine interaction, musicology, and acoustic monitoring.

Prof. van Waterschoot will carry out his research at the e-Media Research Lab of the Campus Group T and the Stadius Centre for Dynamical Systems, Signal Processing, and Data Analytics, which are both part of the Department of Electrical Engineering (ESAT).