View all institutes, centres and groups
Research group

Signal Processing Audio and Hearing Group

We research the processing, perception and control of complex signals.

Part of Engineering

About

We develop technological innovations related to both engineering and the human science aspects of acoustics.

Our main research areas are: 

  • active control of sound and vibration 
  • spatial and 3D audio reproduction and capture 
  • audiology, hearing impairment, psychoacoustics and communication 
  • signal processing for underwater acoustics 
  • bioacoustics 

Our work also extends beyond acoustics to: 

  • the fields of image processing 
  • biomedical signal processing 
  • human balance 

People, projects and publications

People

Dr Rie Sugimoto

Senior Research Fellow
Connect with Rie

Email: rs@isvr.soton.ac.uk

Tel: +44 23 8059 2314

ORCID
LinkedIn

Dr Sergi Palleja Cabre

Royal Academy of Eng. Research Fellow

Research interests

  • Propeller interaction noise
  • Fan broadband noise
  • Duct acoustics

Accepting applications from PhD students

Connect with Sergi

Email: S.Palleja-Cabre@soton.ac.uk

Google Scholar
ORCID
LinkedIn

Dr Sjoerd Van Ophem PhD

Lecturer in Structural Dynamics

Research interests

  • Vibro-acoustic analysis
  • Model order reduction
  • Digital twins

Accepting applications from PhD students

Connect with Sjoerd

Email: S.Van-Ophem@soton.ac.uk

Google Scholar
ORCID
LinkedIn

Professor Stefan Bleeck

Prof of Hearing Science and Technology

Research interests

  • The aim of my work is to understand how we hear sound and to use this knowledge to create bio-inspired solutions to enhance speech communication.
  • I have continuously worked on various aspects of hearing research and technology and have been principal investigator on various research grants (EU, EPSRCS, etc) with a value of more than £2M. I am team leader with an internationally recognised research programme to develop devices that help normal hearing and hearing-impaired people to communicate better in noise. Methodologies include brainstem physiology, neuronal simulations, deep learing, psychophysics, pupil tracking and other physiological measurements. 

Accepting applications from PhD students

Connect with Stefan

Email: S.Bleeck@soton.ac.uk

Tel: +44 23 8059 6682

ORCID

Professor Steve Bell

Professor

Research interests

  • evoked responses: measuring electrical responses from the hearing and balance system in response to sensory stimulation;
  • evaluating the benefits of hearing aid and cochlear implant technology;
  • principle investigator on the EPSRC funded project ‘Personalized fitting and evaluation of hearing aids with EEG responses’ 

Accepting applications from PhD students

Connect with Steve

Email: S.L.Bell@soton.ac.uk

Tel: +44 23 8059 4950

Professor Thomas Blumensath

Professor

Research interests

  • I develop and study advanced algorithms that can solve challenging inverse problems by efficiently exploiting complex prior information. Using techniques from mathematics, statistics and machine learning, my work concentrates primarily on problems in x-ray tomographic image reconstruction and modelling.
  • I work closely with state-of-the-art imaging facilities (µ-VIS, the National Research Facility in Lab-based XCT, the UK’s synchrotron facility at the Diamond Light Source, and ISIS neutron imaging beamline) to find practical solutions to a range of important scientific problems from plant science to manufacturing.
  • My research interests cover areas such as: Theoretical and computational methods for Signal and Image Processing (Machine Learning, Compressed Sensing, Statistical Signal and Image Processing, Quantum Computing, Inverse Problems, Optimisation, X-ray Tomographic Imaging); Advanced tomographic imaging strategies: (limited angle tomography and laminography, Spectral X-ray imaging, Stereo and extreme limited view tomography); Efficient computational methods for tomographic reconstruction, including GPU acceleration, distributed computation and advanced optimisation strategies, Constrained optimisation for ill-conditioned and underdetermined   tomographic inverse problems, Applications of X-ray tomography to the inspection of manufactured components, Multimodal tomographic imaging

Accepting applications from PhD students

Connect with Thomas

Email: Thomas.Blumensath@soton.ac.uk

Tel: +44 23 8059 3224

ORCID

Professor Tim Waters

Head of Department

Research interests

  • Wave propagation in structures
  • Vibration control
  • Vibration based structural health monitoring

Accepting applications from PhD students

Connect with Tim

Email: T.P.Waters@soton.ac.uk

Tel: +44 23 8059 4979

Dr Victoria Watson

Principal Teaching Fellow

Research interests

  • person centered care
  • qualitative research
Connect with Victoria

Email: V.Watson@soton.ac.uk

Tel: +44 23 8059 2287

LinkedIn

Dr Wenjing Sun

Lecturer in Acoustics

Research interests

  • Rolling noise and interior noise of railway vehicle;
  • Railway vehicle dynamics;
  • Indirect measurement of rail and wheel roughness using AI technology.

Accepting applications from PhD students

Connect with Wenjing

Email: W.Sun@soton.ac.uk

Google Scholar

Dr Ying Ye

Associate Professor

Accepting applications from PhD students

Connect with Ying

Email: Y.Ye@soton.ac.uk

Tel: +44 23 8059 4962

ORCID
My research focuses on the use of active control technologies to enhance the performance of systems in terms of their sound and vibration characteristics.
Professor Jordan Cheer
Professor