International Audio Laboratories Erlangen

The International Audio Laboratories Erlangen (AudioLabs) is a joint research institution of Fraunhofer IIS and Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), founded in 2010. It brings together a team of globally-renowned scientists to shape the future of audio and multimedia technologies. Research areas include audio coding, audio signal analysis, and perceptual spatial audio signal processing. The lab is unique worldwide in its mission and international approach, combining scientific ingenuity with practical know-how to turn ideas into commercial successes.

The AudioLabs conducts research through multiple professorships and a team of postdocs and PhD students. Recent projects include piano concerto accompaniment creation, where researchers developed a method to let pianists practice with orchestral accompaniments by removing original piano from recordings and mixing in their own performance. Other work covers multi-voice intonation adaptation, GAN-based speech enhancement, and perceptual audio quality metrics. The lab also produces interactive lecture materials and offers education in audio technologies.

The primary beneficiaries are researchers and PhD students in audio engineering, signal processing, and related fields. The lab's publications appear in top venues like IEEE/ACM Transactions on Audio, Speech, and Language Processing, ICASSP, and ISMIR. Real-world applications of their research include improved audio codecs, speech enhancement for communication systems, and tools for music education and performance.