9451261 Richards A digital audio signal processing laboratory is developed consisting of four networked workstations equipped with specialized hardware and software for the acquisition, processing, storage, and playback of high-quality audio signals. The workstations are equipped with object oriented software development tools for efficient construction of substantial signal processing applications. This equipment is used to provide an extensive laboratory experience as part of a senior level course in non-stationary signal processing that focuses on speech signals. At the core of the proposed course is a semester-long software development project with small interdisciplinary design teams consisting of engineering students, voice science students and faculty from outside the engineering department. Each team identifies needs of the speech scientist that can be met through a software solution, and then designs, implements and tests an application program to meet these needs. Software development takes advantage of the efficient techniques of object oriented programming for modularity, thereby allowing future work to easily build on past accomplishments and facilitating dissemination of the results. The student-designed signal processing objects are collected in a library for use in future projects and available to other schools through the INTERNET.
