Mission

Head of the Acoustic Group at the Laboratory of Wave Engineering LWE.

 Research topics : 

• Active Electroacoustic Resonators: turning conventional loudspeakers membrane into broadband sound absorbers/reflectors through active control;
• Acoustic Metamaterials: engineering acoustic structures to bend the laws of physics, such as negative refraction, or breaking the Fresnel-Descartes laws of refraction.
• Development of ElectroAcoustic MetaMaterials, bridging the gap between active electroacoustic resonators, and acoustic metamaterials.
• Development of Plasma-based loudspeakers: generating sound out of a thin layer of ionized air, without resorting to a physical membrane radiators.
• Development of Plasmacoustic Metalayers: leveraging the massless and transparent properties of plasma-based loudspeakers to control sound wave propagation (absorption, reflection, transmission) without resorting to a "physical" material. 

Teaching activities:

• Electroacoustics (Bachelor)
• Laboratory in ICT (Bachelor)
• Audio engineering (Master)
• Labs in Acoustics (Master)
• Projects in Acoustics (Bachelor & Master)

SHORT BIOGRAPHY

After a PhD in Acoustics (Les Matériaux Actifs à Propriétés Acoustiques Variables, Université du Maine, Le Mans), Dr. Lissek joined the Laboratoire d’Electromagnétisme et d’Acoustique to supervise the active noise control activities of the Acoustic Research Group, headed by Prof. Mario Rossi.
 Since 2006, Dr. Lissek took the leadership of the Acoustic Group, and launched several expertise activities together with new research topics at EPFL, especially in the frame of Aircraft Noise Research in EU projects (FP5-Silence(R), FP6-X3 Noise, FP7-TEENI, OPENAIR, XNOISE EV). He is also appointed expert by the EC to evaluate research proposals in calls for projects in Aeronautics within FP7.
 Since 2015, Hervé Lissek and the Acoustic Group are affiliated to the Laboratoire de Traitement des Signaux LTS2
 Dr. Lissek is now heading a team of 6 people, among which 4 PhD students, 1 Post-doc, and 1 Engineer.

RESEARCH INTERESTS

Dr. Lissek's core competences are related to electroacoustics, namely know-how on loudspeaker and microphone design, acoustic transmission lines description via lumped element models, as well as the design of arrays of transducers for sound reinforcement and acoustic imaging, especially for communication (line arrays, wave field synthesis) applications or noise metrology (beamforming, near-field holography, goniometry). Together with this specific skill, he and his group claim a broader acoustic expertise such as the characterization and model of complex sound sources, including structure-fluid interactions, sound propagation models within complex 3D fields including weather effects and other fluid and thermodynamic interactions, and auditory issues of sound (namely psychoacoustics, including sound design).

As a combination of these competences, active noise control has become a hot activity of Dr. Lissek in the last decade, leading to the development of practical concepts for active noise cancellation, active impedance control, or the recent shunt loudspeakers techniques used as acoustic absorbers, the core of these developments remaining the electroacoustic transducers. As a consequence of the latter, the acoustic group led by Dr. Lissek is investigating new research areas such as acoustic metamaterials, that should lead to acoustic cloaking capabilities.

PROJECTS

Ongoing- SALUTE (H2020-CS2, coord. ECL, France)

- SmartAnswer (H2020-ITN, coord. VKI, Belgium)

- ARTEM (H2020, coord. DLR, Germany)

- Compressive Sensing (SNF)
Completed - INTERACTS (CTI, with Goldmund sa, Relec sa, HEPIA): development of electroacoustic absorbers for the equalization of rooms in the low-frequency range

- BHA(L&S) (CTI, with Phonak ag): development of signal processing techniques for localization and spatialization in hearing aids

- i3DMusic (Eurostars - CTI): enable enhanced playback of existing musical content on up to date and emerging 3D audio systems

-  X-Noise EV 
 
 - OPENAIR (call FP7-AAT-2008-RTD-1): OPtimisation for low Environmental Noise impact AIRcraft
 
 - CTI-VeoVox: microphone arrays dedicated to speech recognition devices, for telecommunications applications (KTI funding).
 
 - TEENI (call FP7-AAT-2007-RTD-1): Turboshaft Engine Exhaust Noise Identification
 
 - ACT-Noise: Active Control for Tampers Noise (FOEN funding)
 
 - QTT: Quiet Traction Transformer (FOEN funding)
 
 - X3-Noise (call FP6-2005-Aero-1): Aircraft External Noise Research Network and Co-ordination.
 
 - CTI-myVox(TM): microphone arrays dedicated to speech recognition devices, for telecommunications applications (KTI funding).
 
 - CTI-Keystrokes: methodologie for the acoustic qualification of keystroke noise (KTI funding).
 
 - Active materials with variable acoustic properties: new techniques for absorbing noise by way of active acoustic impedance matching.
 
 - Sound design: development of characterization, modelization, and design techniques for enhancing sound quality of manufactured objects.
 
 - Audio: electroacoustic transducers design for audio, telecommunications, and active noise control.