A joint effort by Franz Heuchel, Diego Nozal and Efrén Fernandez Grande has won this years pitch battle. Franz presented his and Diegos paper 'Sound Field Control for Outdoor Concerts' and both were especially thankful to Efrén for all his help in preparing the presentation.
With the steady rise of outdoor concerts and festivals in Europe, policy makers around the world are increasingly aware of the impact of environmental noise on the wellbeing of their citizens. As a consequence, organizers of open air concerts and festivals are facing the challenge of delivering exciting and loud audio experiences to their guests, while at the same time having to comply with local regulations. The purpose of this research project is to determine how such noise can be reduced with methods of active sound field control.
Read more about the project here and here
The judges commenting that the presentations contained solid results, which confirm the potential of the proposed methods and that the solutions looked scalable and could be responsible for helping many people. It appears that the panel did not find it hard this year to choose the winner.
Congratulations to all three.