Toon van Waterschoot

Research

Audio engineering

Toon van Waterschoot is heading a team of audio engineering researchers, focusing on signal processing in the context of audio, speech, music, and acoustics applications. The audio engineering group hosts about 10 international PhD and postdoc researchers and participates in several nationally and internationally funded research projects, ranging from fundamental research to industry-funded applied research.

Current research team

Randall Azhar Ali, Matthias Blochberger, Bilgesu Cakmak, Stefano Damiano, Paul Didier, Arina Epure, Martin Jälmby, Valerio Lorenzoni, Kathleen MacWilliam, Akshara Parul, Hannes Rosseel, Duowei Tang, Elisa Tengan Pires de Souza

Biography

Toon van Waterschoot received the MSc (2001) and PhD (2009) degrees in Electrical Engineering, both from KU Leuven, Belgium, where he is currently an Associate Professor and ERC Consolidator Grantee. He has previously held teaching and research positions with the Antwerp Maritime Academy, the Institute for the Promotion of Innovation through Science and Technology in Flanders (IWT), and the Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO) in Belgium, with Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands, and with the University of Lugano in Switzerland. His research interests are in signal processing, machine learning, and numerical optimization, applied to acoustic signal enhancement, acoustic modeling, audio analysis, and audio reproduction. He has been the Scientific Coordinator for the FP7-PEOPLE Marie Curie Initial Training Network "Dereverberation and Reverberation of Audio, Music, and Speech (DREAMS)" and is currently the PI of the ERC Consolidator Grant "The Spatial Dynamics of Room Acoustics", both funded by the European Commission.

He has been serving as an Associate Editor for the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society (AES) and for the EURASIP Journal on Audio, Music, and Speech Processing, and as a Guest Editor for Elsevier Signal Processing. He is a Member of the Board of Directors of the European Association for Signal Processing (EURASIP), Member of the IEEE Audio and Acoustic Signal Processing Technical Committee (AASP-TC), and Founding Member of the European Acoustics Association (EAA) Technical Committee in Audio Signal Processing. He was the General Chair of the 60th AES International Conference in Leuven, Belgium (2016), and has been serving on the Organizing Committee of the European Conference on Computational Optimization (EUCCO 2016) and the IEEE Workshop on Applications of Signal Processing to Audio and Acoustics (WASPAA 2017). He is a member of EURASIP, IEEE, ASA, and AES.

Active projects

• New Perspectives on Medieval and Renaissance Courtly Song
• The Boundary Element Method as a State-Space Realization Problem
• A holistic approach to the design of integrated and distributed digital signal processing algorithms for audio and speech communication devices
• BioacAI - Bioacoustic AI for wildlife protection
• FAIR 2-0 - AI Research Program
• HELIXON - Hybride, efficiënte en vloeiende interpolatie van geluid in uitgebreide realiteit
• I-SPOT - Intelligent Ultra Low-Power Signal Processing for Automotive
• SOUNDS - Service-Oriented Ubiquitous Network-Driven Sound
• UNMUTED - Understanding Music-Based Interventions to Encourage Social- Emotional Development in Groups of Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Finished projects

• Distributed Digital Signal Processing for Ad-hoc Wireless Local Area Audio Networking
• Sound analysis of broadcasted sports events
• Cooperative Signal Processing Solutions for IoT-based Multi-User Speech Communication Systems
• Acoustic event detection - Acoustic event detection: sparse signal representations, embedded optimization algorithms, and case studies
• Cochlear-VII - Advances in Auditory Implants: signal processing and clinical aspects
• DREAMS - Dereverberation and Reverberation of Audio, Music, and Speech (DREAMS)
• DYSCO II - Dynamical systems, control and optimization
• m-sense - Innovatief gebruik van sensoren in mobiele platformen (m-sense)
• MEDIA - Model-based Estimation, Detection and Interpretation of Audio
• Optec II - Optimization in Engineering Center
• Ravenna - Proof-of-concept of a Rationed Architecture for Vehicle Entertainment and NVH Next-generation Acoustics
• SMS4PA - Sound Management System for Public Address Systems
• SONORA - The Spatial Dynamics of Room Acoustics
• SPOTT- Appiness - Tomorrow’s Scalable and PersOnalised advertising Technology, Today
• The Leuven Chansonnier - Researching and Valorizing Franco-Flemish Polyphony with High-High-Technology Tools
• The Library of Voices - The Library of Voices - Unlocking the Alamire Foundation’s Music Heritage Resources Collection through Visual and Sound Technology
• The sound of music - Innovative research and valorization of plainchant through digital technology
• VES - VES funding for SOUNDS

Awards

• ERC Consolidator Grant SONORA (2017), European Research Council (ERC)
• Board of Governors Award (2017), Audio Engineering Society (AES)
• AES Board of Governors Award 2017
• EUSIPCO Best Paper Award
• Best Master Thesis Prize (2014)

Membership

• International Speech Communication Association (ISCA), Student member from January 2007 till December 2008
• EURASIP student member since January 2007
• IEEE student member since January 2004
• AES student member since January 2004
• SIAM student member since January 2004
• ASA student member since January 2003

Honours

• ERC Consolidator Grant

Publications