Signal Processing in the Industry

by Jon S. McElvain (IDSP Liaison to E-Newsletter)

The Industry Digital Signal Processing Technology (IDSP) Standing Committee was formed in 1999 to promote industry participation in the Signal Processing (SP) Society and ICASSP, in particular. It was officially recognized as a standing committee of the Conference Board of the SP Society in May 2002. The SP Society bylaws state that the “Industry DSP Technology Standing Committee shall in every way function like a technical committee; its chair shall serve ex-officio, with vote on the Technical Directions Board.” The IDSP SC has organized the Industry Technology Track (ITT) at ICASSP since 1999. Fields of interest span those covered by the Technical Committees of the SP Society but special emphasis is placed on practical industry applications of signal and image processing. Please see the ITT EDICS for specific areas of interest which cover 10 broad categories and 36 subcategories.

The IDSP SC is organized similarly to a technical committee, with committee members elected from SP Society membership in industry, government, or academia (with strong industry involvement). According to the SPS TC by-laws, the Chair and Vice Chair are elected from among the membership for two year terms. Currently, Fa-Long Luo (Element CXI) is Chair and Visar Berisha (Raytheon) is Vice-Chair. At this time, there are 22 active members, with 17 of those from industry, four from academia, and one from U.S. government research. In 2010 we added seven new members, Chung-Fu Chang (Lockheed-Martin), Phillip De Leon (New Mexico State University), Majid Fozunbal (Knight Capital Group), Gustavo Hernandez-Abrego (Sony Computer Entertainment), Chris Lee (National Cheng Kung University), Beatrice Pesquet-Popescu (Telecom Paris Tech), and Charlie Zhang (Samsung Telecom America). The charter of IDSP is in general to serve the industrial sector of the SPS membership, and member responsibilities include: reviewing papers for conferences (including ICASSP ITT and others), promoting activities in the Signal Processing Society related to industry, promoting papers with strong industrial application content and nominating them for awards, and organizing special sessions and workshops on industrial signal and image processing technology.

The IDSP SC recently completed reviews for the ITT track of the 2011 ICASSP conference to be held in Prague. A total of 45 papers were reviewed, and the ITT will have 1 lecture and 2 poster sessions with papers focusing on industrial applications of signal and image processing. Since its inception, the IDSP SC has organized a special session at ICASSP, as well as special industry-related issues of the Signal Processing Magazine - another special issue is being planned for 2012. Recently, members of IDSP have been deeply involved in the creation of an “industry-friendly” SPS-sponsored conference/symposium, with a target inauguration in 2012. Fundamentally, the content is intended to be more synergistic with the interests of the SPS industrial membership, and thus will feature papers, tutorials, and exhibitions that are more targeted toward applications.

Individuals interested in involvement with the Industry DSP Technology Standing Committee can contact Fa-Long Luo. New ideas and perspectives are welcome, and we are always looking for ways to enhance the services available to the SPS, particularly for those with an industrial affiliation.