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The idea for this book was formed during the doctorate of Bernd Iser. Bernd
Iser was working on efficient and robust bandwidth extension algorithms in
hands-free systems for Harman/Becker Automotive Systems. It turned out
that bandwidth extension of speech signals was a topic of appreciable interest,
where lots of scientific publications discussing details of specific solutions could
be found. What was missing was a contribution elaborately discussing the
entirety of different approaches and comparing, respectively evaluating them
in a meaningful manner. Another property that was disregarded in the state
of the art was the influence of noise corrupted real-world signals. All these
considerations led to the belief that there was a need for a book taking all
these missing aspects into account.
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Minker, who was supervising the doctorate of Bernd
Iser at the University of Ulm, Germany, came up with the idea of writing such
a book. Dr. Gerhard Schmidt, the leader of the acoustic signal processing research
team, Bernd Iser was working at Harman/Becker Automotive Systems,
joined the project for having another speech signal processing expert on board.
Based on the research work on the topic of bandwidth extension of speech signals
the present book emerged in collaboration that tries to cover the above
described requirements.
Like all extensive projects this book project would not have been possible
to handle without the support, advice, criticism and review of countless
people. Representative for all of them a few people that added substantial contributions
to this book should be mentioned and thanked for their valuable
support.
The authors thank Dr. Markus Buck for his accurate and detailed review
of the manuscript; Mohamed Krini for many valuable discussions on the algorithms
as well as on the manuscript and Dr. Tim Haulick for arranging
the possibility of conducting research on the topic of bandwidth extension of
speech signals at Harman/Becker Automotive Systems. |