Nov
25
Date: 25-November-2025
Time: 09:45 AM ET (New York Time)
Presenters: Dr. Karlheinz Brandenburg, Dr. Woon-Seng Gan, Dr. Rishabh Gupta & Dr. Annika Neidhart
Based on the IEEE Xplore® article under the same title.
Published: IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, May 2022.
Download article: Original article will be made publicly available for download on the day of the webinar for 48 hours. ARTICLE LINK
Abstract
Augmented/Mixed/Extended Reality (AR/MR/XR) is emerging as one of the key technologies in the future of computing. Audio cues are critical for maintaining a high degree of realism, social connection, and spatial awareness for various AR/MR applications such as training, gaming, remote work, education, and virtual social gatherings. Motivated by a wide variety of AR/MR listening experiences delivered over hearables, in this webinar we provide a systematic review of advanced signal processing and AI techniques for AR/MR audio to equip the researchers and engineers in the signal processing community for the next wave of AR/MR/XR technology.
Biography
Dr. Karlheinz Brandenburg
Karlheinz Brandenburg (LF ‘23) received diploma degrees in electrical engineering and mathematics from Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany in 1980 and 1982 and his Dr.-Ing. degree in electrical and electronics engineering from Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany in 1989.
He is currently a Senior Professor at Technical University Ilmenau, Germany, and CEO of Brandenburg Labs, Ilmenau, Germany, a start-up company specializing in immersive audio technologies. From 1993 to 1999 he was Head of the Audio/Multimedia Department at Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS, Erlangen, Germany and from 2000 to 2019 Director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology IDMT, Ilmenau, Germany as well as Full Professor at Technical University Ilmenau, Germany. He is known for his pioneering work in digital audio coding as a main contributor to the MP3 and Advanced Audio Coding standards, perceptual measurement techniques, wave field synthesis, psychoacoustics, and analysis of audio and video signals.
Dr. Brandenburg’s many awards (most shared with colleagues) include the IEEE Masaru Ibuka Consumer Electronics Award, IEEE Signal Processing Society Industrial Innovation Award, German Future Award, membership in the Hall of Fame of the Internet Society, Audio Engineering Society Silver Medal Award, Digital Processing Medal from the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, Helmholtz Medal of the German Society for Acoustics, Medal of Honor from Verband Deutscher Tonmeister e.V. and three honorary doctorate degrees.
Dr. Woon-Seng Gan
Woon-Seng Gan received the B.Eng. (First Class Honours) and the Ph.D. degrees in electrical and electronic engineering from the University of Strathclyde, UK, in 1989 and 1993, respectively.
He is currently a Professor of Audio Engineering and Director of the Smart Nation TRANS Lab at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. His research focuses on bridging the physical and digital domains through signal processing, with notable contributions in active noise and sound control. His work has led to practical implementations and licensing of spatial audio algorithms for hearables, directional sound beamforming, and active noise control solutions for headphones and open-window scenarios.
Dr. Gan currently serves as the President of the Asia Pacific Signal and Information Processing Association (APSIPA), the region’s leading association dedicated to advancing signal and information processing research and education. He is also an IEEE Signal Processing Society Distinguished Lecturer and a Fellow of the Audio Engineering Society (AES). He has held multiple leadership roles within IEEE, including appointments to the Signal Processing Society’s Technical Directions Board (2021–2023), Education Board (2022–2023), and Conference Board (2024). He is a member of the IEEE Audio and Acoustic Signal Processing Technical Committee and has served on the editorial boards of the IEEE/ACM Transactions on Audio, Speech, and Language Processing, IEEE Signal Processing Letters, and is currently an Associate Editor of the IEEE Signal Processing Magazine.
Dr. Rishabh Gupta
Rishabh Gupta (M ‘24) received a dual degree with Bachelor's in electrical engineering (B. Tech. Honours) from BITS Pilani, India, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, in 2016 and 2022, respectively.
He is currently working as a Staff Engineer and Audio AI researcher at Samsung R&D Institute, Bangalore, India. He has previously worked at Meta Reality Labs, USA, and Texas Instruments, Bangalore, India on spatial audio and loudspeaker technologies. His recent research works and interests span across topics such as audio source separation, spatial audio, ambient filtering, and speech enhancement targeted towards consumer audio devices.
Dr. Gupta has published more than 20 papers in leading journals and conferences, including IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, IEEE ICASSP, Interspeech, Audio Engineering Society and the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, with over 570 citations and an h-index of 11. He is an active reviewer for several journals and conferences such as IEEE ICASSP, Audio Engineering Society, Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, and Springer. He has received multiple awards, such as the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology Innovation Fellowship (2016), NTU Research Scholarship (2017), and Best Demo Award at AES Conference in 2019. He was also an invited tutorial speaker at IEEE ICASSP 2018.
Dr. Annika Neidhart
Annika Neidhart received the M.Sc. degree in automation/robotics from Technische Universität Chemnitz, Germany, in 2007 and the M.Sc. in audio engineering from the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz, Austria, in 2015. In 2023, she was awarded a Dr.-Ing. degree from Technische Universität Ilmenau, Germany.
She is currently a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Sound Recording in Guildford, Surrey, UK where she works on the perceptual optimization of Immersive Audio rendering and room acoustic modelling for Virtual, Augmented and Extended Reality. She has worked as an Audio Programmer at LEAR Corporation and as Researcher and Project Manager in Virtual Acoustics at the Fraunhofer Institute of Media Technology in Ilmenau, before she started conducting research on her own behalf. She developed her own research projects to complete her Ph.D. thesis on the plausibility of simplified room representations in the lab of Karlheinz Brandenburg at Technische Universität Ilmenau, where she was deputy head of the group for more than three years. Her research also contributed to starting the company Brandenburg Labs.
Dr. Neidhardt is a member of the Audio Engineering Society (AES) and the European Acoustics Association (EAA). She chairs the Technical Committee on Virtual Acoustic of the German Acoustics Society and the AES Technical Committee on Interactive Media and Games.
