Acoustics Research Institute


The Acoustics Research Institute is a non-university research institution of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna. It was founded in 1972 as 'Kommission für Schallforschung', became a 'Forschungsstelle' in 1994 and since 2000 has the rank of an institute.

Areas of research

ARI is a multidisciplinary research institution, working in application-oriented basic research. It is addressing question related to the 'chain of sound', ranging from sound generation over propagation to perception. The institute's work is focused on the following topics:
ARI is conducting research on the localization of sound source with neuroprostheses, modeling and improvement of measures of noise attenuation for traffic, the phonetical acoustics of regional dialects, the improvement of perceptually motivated coding strategies, and the mathematical theory of signal decomposition based on the investigation of dynamic hearing characteristics, in particular the feedback between the peripheral and more central processing stages, as well as the further development of the mathematical theory of signal representation optimized for questions of the production and perception of sound. In order to be able to create precise acoustic models and efficient methods, the integration of application-oriented and numerical mathematics, signal processing and methods of artificial intelligence is essential. The interdisciplinary approach of the institute allows the development of innovations based on synergy effects of multidisciplinary research, which in turn stimulate the individual research areas. Methods developed in basic research are also implemented in software developments for practice.
The institute is led by Peter Balazs.