Electrical Engineering

Research > Faculty Projects

Coherent Modulation Frequency Representation and Filtering

Principal Investigator
Les Atlas

Sponsor(s)
Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR)

Award Period
02/01/2006 - 11/30/2008

Abstract
Modulation frequency analysis offers the potential to analyze and modify a signal’s dynamics. Building upon decades of work by others, we have come up with new principles for well-founded analysis and design of modulation frequency systems. Moreover, recent breakthroughs, which include our discovery that modulation envelopes are usually complex, allows us to filter in modulation with no added artifact and to meet powerfully general superposition constraints. Our modulation representations offer a close to complete foundation for a new form of signal analysis and filtering. This new form of filtering has applications in a wide variety of problems including, for example, single-channel talker separation and enhancement of noisy speech. Our proposed research has three objectives: 1) to carefully define coherent modulation spectra and modulation filters, 2) to disseminate easy-to-use modulation spectral tools to other scientists and 3) to work closely with other researchers to investigate novel approaches to several open problems in auditory science. These open problems include novel explanations for auditory streaming effects, quantitative models for informational masking, and modulation frequency impact on auditory resolution and selectivity.

Updates or corrections to this page should be sent to gheaton@u.washington.edu.