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Phone:: (023) 8059 2384
Email:: S.J.Elliott@soton.ac.uk

Professor Stephen Elliott BSc(Hons), PhD, FREng

Professor of Adaptive Systems

Professor Steve Elliott is a Professor at the ISVR, in Engineering and Physical Sciences at the University of Southampton.

He graduated with joint honours in physics and electronics from the University of London in 1976 and in 1979 was awarded a Ph.D. from the University of Surrey for a thesis on musical acoustics. After his appointment as a lecturer at the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research (ISVR) in 1982, he was made senior lecturer in 1988 and Professor of Adaptive Systems in 1994.

He served as Director of the ISVR from 2005 to 2010

My research has been concerned with the connections between the physical world, signal processing and control, mostly in relation the active control of sound and vibration. This work has resulted in the practical demonstration of active control in propeller aircraft, cars and helicopters. My current research interests include personal and zonal audio and modelling the active processes within the cochlear

Professor Elliott has published over 250 papers in refereed journals and 600 conference papers and is co-author of Active Control of Sound (with P A Nelson 1992), Active Control of Vibration (with C R Fuller and P A Nelson 1996) and author of Signal Processing for Active Control (2001).

He was made a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2009.

Honours and Awards

Date	Honour/Distinction
1980	Member Acoustical Society of America
1991	Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers
1992	Tyndall Medal of the Institute of Acoustics for distinguished work in acoustics (jointly with P A Nelson)
2000	Fellow Institute of Electrical Engineers
2000	Keith Harris James Prize from Institute of Mechanical Engineers for paper with P.Gardonio, Y‑S.Lee and S.Debost
2004	Presenter of UKACC Annual lecture "Automatic Control of Sound and Vibration"
2005	Fellow Institute of Acoustics
2008	Best poster award at the 10th International Workshop on the Mechanics of Hearing, Keele University (with E. Ku and B. Lineton)
2009	Fellow Royal academy of Engineering

Research

Publications

Teaching

Contact

Research interests

Professor Elliott's research interests have been mainly concerned with the connections between the physical world and digital signal processing.

The research was originally related to the active control of sound and vibration. This work has resulted in the demonstration of active control in cars, helicopters and propeller aircraft and the authorship of the books "Active Control of Sound" with P.A. Nelson, "Active Control of Vibration" with C.R. Fuller and P.A. Nelson and, most recently, "Signal Processing for Active Control".

The active control research has traditionally involved the reduction of unwanted noise, most recently on luxury yachts as below, but has recently developed to the reproduction of sound signals, such as music, in specific regions of space, so that, for example, the driver of a car can listen to Radio 4, while a child in the back of the car can listen to a Disney DVD.

He is also involved in working on the growing body of work on modelling the mechanics of the cochlea and the functioning of cochlear implants, as below. This is important not only for communication and speech processing systems, but also in order to help understand the causes of hearing impairment and how they might be overcome.

Luxury yacht on which active noise control is being investigated — Active noise control investigation

A model of the structure of the inner ear into which a cochlear implant has been inserted which is used to predict the generated voltage field — Model of structure of inner ear

Research group

Signal Processing, Audio and Hearing Group

Research project(s)

Active Control of Sound and Vibration on a Luxury Yacht

Traditional passive noise and vibration techniques can be complemented by active control systems and improve the acoustic environment in luxury yachts.

Active Control of Road Noise in a Car

The use of active noise control in cars may allow manufacturers to remove traditional passive acoustic treatments and thus reduce weight and improve fuel efficiency.

Active Position Control of Flexible Structures

Active Structural Acoustic Control

Cochlear modelling of distortion product otoacoustic emissions

Compensation filters for feedback control units with proof-mass electrodynamic actuators

Decentralised control units for vibration control in cars

DigiTwin

DigiTwin is a £5M EPSRC funded programme grant looking at Digital Twins for dynamic systems, running from February 2018 until January 2023, led by the University of Sheffield in collaboration with the Universities of Bristol, Cambridge, Liverpool, Southampton & Swansea and ten industrial partners: Airbus, EDF energy, Leonardo Helicopters, LOC engineering, Romax Technology, Schlumberger, Siemens Gamesa, Siemens Turbomachinery, Stirling Dynamics and Ultra Electronics.

Directive Warning Sounds for Electric Vehicles

The generation of independent listening zones in a car cabin would allow each occupant to listen to a different audio programme without the constraints of headphones.

Generating a Personal Listening Zone from a Mobile Device

Mobile audio devices are widely used in public spaces and reducing the noise nuisance that the pose can be achieved using loudspeaker arrays.

Generation of Multiple Independent Listening Zones in a Vehicle Cabin

The generation of independent listening zones in a car cabin would allow each occupant to listen to a different audio programme without the constraints of headphones.

Local Control of Sound

Modelling the voltage distribution due to a cochlear implant

Power modelling for cochlear implants

Prediction of ultrasonic wave propagation in aircraft structures for crack monitoring

Robust control algorithms

Robust transducer selection

The effect of active noise control on the sound quality in cars

The research of wave motion in coupled system by using finite element method

Waves in loudspeaker cones

Hybrid active and passive structural noise control

In this project the feasibility of using active and passive means of vibration control in aerospace structures is investigated. In particular, attention has been focused on controlling vibration transmission through light weight satellite structures at medium frequencies. The structure under test is a 4.5 meter long satellite boom consisting of 10 identical bays with equilateral triangular cross sections. This structure is typical of those that might be used in space telescopes, space stations or synthetic aperture radar systems. Such a structure is typically used to support sensitive instruments in precise alignments spaced tens of metres apart. While a great deal of work has been done on this problem at low frequencies, relatively little has been achieved to date at medium frequencies (here taken to be between 150 Hz and 250 Hz). Nonetheless, this is of importance to new space missions.

Active Control of Sound and Vibration

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Articles

Books

Elliott, S. J. (2001). Signal Processing for Active Control. Academic Press.
Fuller, C. R., Elliott, S. J., & Nelson, P. A. (1996). Active control of vibration, 1st edition. Academic Press.
Nelson, P. A., & Elliott, S. J. (1991). Active control of sound. Academic Press.

Book Chapters

Dal Borgo, M., Ghandchi Tehrani, M., & Elliott, S. (Accepted/In press). Nonlinear strategies for vibration control and energy harvesting. In W. Desmet, B. Pluymers, S. van Ophem, & P. Becht (Eds.), “ANTARES” Advanced Training and Research in Energy Efficient Smart Structures KU Leuven. https://www.fp7-antares.eu/ANTARES_Book.pdf
Elliott, S. J. (2010). Active noise and vibration control in vehicles. In X. Wang (Ed.), Vehicle Noise and Vibration Refinement (pp. 235-251). Woodhead Publishing.
Elliott, S. J., & Stothers, I. M. (2010). Active noise control in vehicles. In McGraw-Hill Yearbook of Science & Technology 2010 (pp. 3-5). McGraw-Hill.
Elliott, S. J. (2007). Active noise control. In M. J. Crocker (Ed.), Handbook of Noise and Vibration Control (pp. 761-770). John Wiley and Sons.
Lee, Y-S., Elliott, S. J., & Brennan, M. J. (2004). Collocation strategies for piezoelectric sensor and actuator pair for smart structures. In S-S. Lee, D-J. Yoon, J-H. Lee, & S. Lee (Eds.), Advances in Nondestructive Evaluation (pp. 2158-2163). (Key Engineering Materials; No. 270-273). Trans Tech.
Elliott, S. J. (2003). Active noise control: Past, present and future. In C. Ranz-Guerra, & J. A. Gallego-Juarez (Eds.), New Acoustics-Selected Topics (pp. 167-193). CSIC Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas.
Elliott, S. J. (2002). Adaptive filters. In S. G. Braun, D. J. Ewins, & S. S. Rao (Eds.), Encyclopedia of vibration (pp. 81-87). (http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/rwvb.2001.0059; Vol. 1). Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1006/rwvb.2001.0059
Elliott, S. (2002). Adaptive methods in active control. In M. O. Tokhi, & S. M. Veres (Eds.), Active Sound and Vibration Control: Theory and Applications (pp. 57-72). Institution of Electrical Engineers.
Elliott, S. J. (2002). Optimal filters. In S. G. Braun, D. J. Ewins, & S. S. Rao (Eds.), Encyclopedia of vibration (pp. 977-982). Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1006/rwvb.2001.0068

Conferences

Reports

Working Papers

Title	Module Code	Programme	Role
Active Control of Sound and Vibration	ISVR6139	MSc Sound and Vibration Studies	Lecturer
Electroacoustics	ISVR6137	Acoustical Engineering, Acoustics and Music	Coordinator
Electroacoustics	ISVR6137	MSc Sound and Vibration Studies	Coordinator
Musical Instrument Acoustics	ISVR3063	Acoustical Engineering, Acoustics and Music	Lecturer

Professor Stephen Elliott
Engineering, University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton. SO17 1BJ United Kingdom

Room Number: 13/3059

Facsimile: (023) 8059 3190

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