Markus Schnell

MPEG-4 AAC-ELD v2 – The New State of the Art in High Quality Communication Audio Coding

Recently MPEG finished the standardization of a Low Delay MPEG Surround tool that is tailored for enhancing the widely adopted AAC-ELD low delay codec for high-quality audio communication into AAC-ELD v2. In combination with the Low Delay MPEG Surround tool, the coding efficiency for stereo content outperforms competing low delay audio codecs. This paper describes the technical challenges and solutions for designing a low delay codec that delivers a performance which is comparable to that of existing state of the art compression schemes. It provides a comparison to competing proprietary and ITU-T codecs, as well as a guideline for how to select the best possible points of operation. Applications facilitated by AAC-ELD v2 in the area of broadcasting and mobile video conferencing are discussed.

A self-organizing and fault-tolerant wired peer-to-peer sensor network for textile applications

Textiles are omnipresent in everyday life. Their combination with microelectronics will lead to completely new applications, thus achieving elements of ambient intelligence. The integration of sensor or actuator networks, using fabrics with conductive fibres as a textile motherboard enable the fabrication of large active areas. In this paper we propose a smart textile based on a wired peer-to-peer network of simple information processing elements with integrated sensors or actuators. A self-organizing and fault-tolerant architecture is accomplished which detects the physical shape of the network. Routing paths are formed for data transmission, automatically circumventing defective or missing areas. The network architecture allows the smart textiles to be produced by reel-to-reel processes, cut into arbitrary shapes subsequently and implemented in systems at low installation costs. The possible applications are manifold, ranging from alarm systems to intelligent guidance systems, passenger recognition in car seats, air conditioning control in interior lining and smart wallpaper with software-defined light switches.

Text-to-speech for low-resource systems

This article describes the restrictions and requirements low-resource systems to impose on text-to-speech (TTS) software. The most important point is available memory size, but computing time and implementation issues are discussed as well. For each restriction, one or more solutions are presented. The proferred solutions have been implemented by Infineon Technologies AG and the Technical University of Dresden.