Diego Caviedes Nozal from the small northern coastal town of Colindres in Spain, returns to DTU Elektro as a PhD student in Outdoor Sound Propagation and Monitoring for Sound Field Control Applications.
Having studied a BSc and MSc in Telecommunications Engineering at Valladolid University in Spain and then the MSc Acoustics Engineering at DTU, Diego is now part of the exiting MONICA project which started at the beginning of January this year.
"In addition to this, the facilities you find here at DTU are quite unique""
Diego Caviedes Nozal
Diegos passion in acoustics and audio phemomena encourages him to solve problems in any field involving sound and vibration; from room acoustics to structural vibrations. The main focus has been mainly on algorithm development and DSP applications, trying to create solutions applicable to present problems. Being a musician and an audiophile was the main reason Diego began to focus on Acoustic Engineering. The field presents a great opportunity of applying his previous knowledge in signal processing and wave fields into an area related to his personal hobbies.
When asked to elaborate in his research interest Diego says " The motivation for the PhD comes from being a guitar player and a concert attender for more than 10 years. I have experienced the problematic of listening to music at outdoor concerts with poor quality due to different factors. Dealing with these factors is one of the main topics of this PhD project, which presents the opportunity of developing an actual solution that will be implemented in real scenarios for real customers. This approximates working at the University closer to working in a company, having up to 4 members between PhD students and postdocs working on the same project.
"Working at the Acoustic Technology group in Denmark was therefore a perfect opportunity which fit these criterea. While studying my masters in acoustics with this group and working as research assistant, I experienced working with a multidisciplinary team and a team that is the leader in research in the acoustics field. In addition to this, the facilities you find here at DTU are quite unique"
Going into more depth on his research, Diego explains "The main task in this PhD project is to develop an outdoor sound propagation model, to be integrated in an outdoor sound field control system. The model will involve application of real time DSP systems. The propagation models will be used also for prediction of sound levels and annoyance in the surrounding domestic areas. The data used for model updating will come from various Internet of Things devices - microphones, wind and temperature sensors, and video cameras.
Good estimates of the transfer functions between source and receiver positions are essential. The forward model needs to be updated to match the actual atmospheric/weather conditions, by use of adaptive filters and Bayesian statistical methods and model updating (non-stationary inverse problems).
Having been living in Denmark already for 3 whole years Diego confirms that he likes living in Denmark, " It's a nice place, with helpful people and plenty of opportunities. They compensate for the weather with good humor and positive thinking..... even though sometimes it is not enough.