ARDOR: Adaptive Rate-Distortion Optimized Sound Coder

The objective of the ARDOR research project (EU grant no. IST-2001-34095) is to meet the need for a universal codec that has been created by the emergence of time-varying heterogeneous networks and by the convergence of traditional consumer electronics with mobile communications. A universal sound codec will be developed that adapts to the time-varying characteristics of the input signal, to time-varying network and application constraints and to user-preferred codec attributes. The codec will be based on an architecture consisting of a set of advanced sub-coding strategies, and a control system that allocates rates and signal components to each sub-coder using a perceptual distortion measure [S. van de Par, A. Kohlrausch, R. Heusdens, J. Jensen and S.H. Jensen, 2003]. The research is carried out in close corporation with Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Delft University of Technology, University of Hannover, France Telecom R&D, Philips Research, Eindhoven. Aalborg University is leader of the work package on noise and sinusoidal-based coding strategies (project leader Søren Holdt Jensen) and participates also in the work package on the multiple-constraint control mechanism. (Mads Græsbøll Christensen, Fredrik Nordén, Søren Vang Andersen, Søren Holdt Jensen)