Bishnu S. Atal (born 1933) is an Indian physicist and engineer. He is a noted researcher in

acoustics Acoustics is a branch of physics that deals with the study of mechanical waves in gases, liquids, and solids including topics such as vibration, sound, ultrasound and infrasound. A scientist who works in the field of acoustics is an acoustician ...

, and is best known for developments in

speech coding Speech coding is an application of data compression of digital audio signals containing speech. Speech coding uses speech-specific parameter estimation using audio signal processing techniques to model the speech signal, combined with generic da ...

. He advanced

linear predictive coding Linear predictive coding (LPC) is a method used mostly in audio signal processing and speech processing for representing the spectral envelope of a digital signal of speech in compressed form, using the information of a linear predictive model. ...

(LPC) during the late 1960s to 1970s, and developed

code-excited linear prediction Code-excited linear prediction (CELP) is a linear predictive speech coding algorithm originally proposed by Manfred R. Schroeder and Bishnu S. Atal in 1985. At the time, it provided significantly better quality than existing low bit-rate algori ...

(CELP) with

Manfred R. Schroeder Manfred Robert Schroeder (12 July 1926 – 28 December 2009) was a German physicist, most known for his contributions to acoustics and computer graphics. He wrote three books and published over 150 articles in his field. Born in Ahlen, he stud ...

in 1985. In 1987, Atal was elected as a member into the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy ...

for innovative research in the area of linear predictive coding of speech.

Biography

Atal was born in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

, and received his BS degree in

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

(1952) from the

University of Lucknow The University of Lucknow (informally known as Lucknow University, and LU) is a public state university based in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. Founded in 1920, the University of Lucknow is one of the oldest government owned institutions of higher edu ...

, a diploma in electrical communication engineering (1955) from the

Indian Institute of Science The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) is a public, deemed, research university for higher education and research in science, engineering, design, and management. It is located in Bengaluru, in the Indian state of Karnataka. The institute wa ...

Bangalore Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...

and a PhD in electrical engineering (1968) from

Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute The New York University Tandon School of Engineering (commonly referred to as Tandon) is the engineering and applied sciences school of New York University. Tandon is the second oldest private engineering and technology school in the United Sta ...

. From 1957 to 1960, he was a lecturer in

at the Department of Electrical Communication Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. In 1961 Atal joined

Bell Laboratories Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984), then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996) and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007), is an American industrial research and scientific development company owned by mult ...

, where his subsequent research focused on

and

speech Speech is a human vocal communication using language. Each language uses Phonetics, phonetic combinations of vowel and consonant sounds that form the sound of its words (that is, all English words sound different from all French words, even if ...

, making major contributions in the field of speech analysis, synthesis, and coding, including low bit-rate speech coding and automatic

speech recognition Speech recognition is an interdisciplinary subfield of computer science and computational linguistics that develops methodologies and technologies that enable the recognition and translation of spoken language into text by computers with the m ...

. He advanced and promoted

(1967), and developed

(1985) with

. He retired in 2002 to become affiliate professor of Electrical Engineering at the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...

. Atal holds more than 16 U.S. patents, and is a member of the

and

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

, and a fellow of the

Acoustical Society of America The Acoustical Society of America (ASA) is an international scientific society founded in 1929 dedicated to generating, disseminating and promoting the knowledge of acoustics and its practical applications. The Society is primarily a voluntary orga ...

and of the

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operation ...

. He received the 1986

IEEE Morris N. Liebmann Memorial Award The initially called Morris Liebmann Memorial Prize provided by the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE), the IEEE Morris N. Liebmann Memorial Award was created in 1919 in honor of Colonel Morris N. Liebmann. It was initially given to awardees who h ...

"for pioneering contributions to linear predictive coding for speech processing", and the 1993 IEEE ASSP Society Award for contributions to linear prediction of speech, multipulse, and code-excited source coding. He is the

Franklin Institute The Franklin Institute is a science museum and the center of science education and research in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is named after the American scientist and statesman Benjamin Franklin. It houses the Benjamin Franklin National Memori ...

's 2003 Benjamin Franklin Medal Laureate in Engineering.

Selected works

US Patent 4,472,832: Digital speech coder

References

* ttp://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=2308&page=515 Voice Communication Between Humans and Machines

External links

From “Harmonic Telegraph” to Cellular Phones
– Bishnu Atal talks about the history of telecom invention and his role in pushing cell phone technology (Aug 23, 2016 at USC
event
!--at Ming Hsieh Institute (USC Event Calendar)-->
book
{{DEFAULTSORT:Atal, Bishnu S. 1933 births Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Living people Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering Fellow Members of the IEEE Scientists at Bell Labs Indian Institute of Science alumni University of Lucknow alumni Polytechnic Institute of New York University alumni Fellows of the Acoustical Society of America Speech processing researchers