Professor Francis Boland

My career as an engineer has been predominantly based within the academic sector. I am very committed to and derive much satisfaction from teaching electrical engineering principles to junior students and teaching advanced topics in signal processing and systems theory to senior undergraduate and postgraduate students. My research work is in the mathematics and algorithms of adaptive systems and digital signal processing for audio and acoustics. The focus of my research has, in recent years, been the delivery of accurate immersive audio environments. The research is motivated by the obvious flaw in a virtual environment in which visual and auditory cues are not spatially coincident. Furthermore, the perceptive effect of this spatial disjunction is often unpredictable as it depends on the events in the virtual environment and the nature of the actions expected of the user or participant. The objective of my research is to create, for a listener, the immersive experience of spatially accurate audio cues that are stable with voluntary or random head and other movements by the user. The research of the group I lead has, in recent years, achieved novel theoretical and experimental results that include [Details are included in our associated publications] 1 We proposed and verified that within the large data sets of angle dependent head related impulse (HRIR) response functions, associated with binaural hearing, there exist angle independent sub-systems. We have recently reported a theoretical underpinning of this work by showing its equivalence to the approximate factorisation of sets of polynomials with random coefficients and we have also shown that the method can be used to equalise headphone transfer functions. 2 We have implemented an Ambisonic soundfield using a virtual uniform circular array with a rotatable soundfield using headtracking to maintain a stable orientation. 3 We have developed algorithms for detecting and interpolating the reflections in Room Impulse Response functions and a novel method for measuring the standard acoustic decay response of a room. I have maintained strong links with the engineering industry and this has always informed my research. These links include extensive EU collaborative research, the delivery of specialist courses and consultancy work and professional associations

  Applied probability   Communication engineering, technology   Communications engineering   Computer vision and robotics   Control Engineering   Engineering & Physical Acoustics   Foundations and methods   Human computer interactions   Imaging and Computer Vision   Modelling, modelling tools, 3D modelling   Multimedia   Performance and technology   Signal processing   Signal, Video & Audio Processing   Sound Engineering   Speech processing/technology   Systems control, Modelling, Neural networks   Systems Engineering   Systems/Control   Telecommunication Engineering   Telecommunications   Vibration and Accoustic Engineering

Research interests in digital signal processing and technology for audio, acoustics. Systems theory for modelling and design in complex and adaptive systems.