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Franklin Institute awards program
held
Andrea Flood ‘03
 On
April 22, the University held a voice coding workshop and symposium honoring
Dr. Bishnu Atal, the 2003 recipient of the Benjamin Franklin Medal Laureate
in Electrical Engineering. Atal was recognized for his advancements in
the creation of digital cellular mobile communications technology. The
event was sponsored by the Center for Advanced Communications, the College
of Engineering and the Franklin Institute Awards Program.
This year’s award was bestowed on Atal in recognition of his valuable
work on voice coding, which includes such concepts as speech analysis-by-synthesis
coding and the Code-excited linear predictive. These developments have
greatly improved the quality of digital speech and have expanded the benefits
of cellular phone technology.
In his address, “History of Speech Coding Work,” Atal discussed
how speech coding has developed into what it is today. After noting, “I
am very pleased to be here today and am very impressed by this campus,”
Atal provided a detailed account of the history of speech coding work.
Atal’s address focused on the work of Homer Dudley, whose philosophy
on speech coding has guided this discipline. Atal read from Dudley’s
work, that stated, “If I could determine what there is in the very
rapidly changing complex speech wave that corresponds to the simple motions
of the lips and tongue, I could then analyze speech for these quantities.”
Atal remarked that this ideal is the very essence of speech coding work.
The voice coding workshop also featured presentations by Dr. John Makhoul
of BBN Technologies; Dr. Rich Cox of AT&T; and Gene Frantz of TI.
The symposium was moderated by Roy Privett of Hitech Associates.
Atal has recently retired from his position as technology director at
AT&T’s Shannon Labs. He is a member of the National Academy
of Engineering, the National Academy of Sciences, and is also a Fellow
of the Acoustical Society of America. In addition, he holds 16 U.S. and
numerous international patents in speech processing and his research has
been documented in over 90 technical papers. Atal has also been awarded
the Signal Processing Society Award and the Thomas Alva Edison Patent
Award of the R&D Council of New Jersey.
The Franklin Institute has awarded medals for scientific discoveries and
technological innovations since it was founded in 1824. The awards are
bestowed in honor of Benjamin Franklin and are considered as American
Nobel Prizes. They are among the oldest comprehensive science and technology
awards programs in the world.
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