Wavelets in Audio/Visual Electronic Systems

WAVES is an extension and an expansion of a previous pilot project 'OPTOCTRL'. The key motivating technology for the present research program is the digital signal processor (DSP). The invention of the DSP and the development of a floating point DSP into a small component with a cost of less than $10, represents one of the greatest steps forwards ever for the consumer electronics industry (and many other industries). A signal processing algorithm or a feedback control system that few years ago involved layouts of huge boards of discrete digital components (or even analog circuits) with expensive manufacturing systems, now can be realized with a one time spending of a few man-months of software development. Even more significantly, signal processing methods and automatic control algorithms which seemed completely impractical just a few years ago, now already are beginning to be marketed. This development coincides with a recent breakthrough in mathematics and advanced signal analysis, namely the development of the wavelet transform and associated algorithms. In this work, two central features of these algorithms will be exploited: the ability to merge time and frequency analysis and the ability to tailor the signal analysis algorithms themselves to be optimal in a specific sense to the problem at hand.