Dr Yusuke Hioka

BE, ME, PhD (Keio University, Japan), PGCertTertTchg(Canterbury), SMIEEE

Senior Lecturer

In: Mechanical Engineering » Faculty of Engineering

Biography

I received my B.E., M.E., and Ph.D. degrees in engineering in 2000, 2002, and 2005 from Keio University, Yokohama, Japan. From 2005 to 2012, I was with the NTT Cyber Space Laboratories (now NTT Media Intelligence Laboratories), Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT). From 2010 to 2011, I was also a visiting researcher at Victoria University of Wellington. In 2013 I came back to New Zealand and was appointed as a Lecturer at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch. Then in 2014, I joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering as a Senior Lecturer in Mechatronics where I mainly teach electronics and computer engineering courses for the Mechatronics programme. I am also the Deputy Director of the Acoustics Research Centre at the Department of Mechanical Engineering.

Research | Current

Since I was studying towards my PhD I specialised in audio and acoustic signal processing particularly focusing on microphone arrays which is a technology that enables us to emphasise sound arriving from particular directions/locations.

After I received my degree I worked in industry for nearly 8 years where I had many opportunities to utilise my expertise in developing commercial products as well as growing my academic career. Because of this industrial experience the majority of my research focuses on problems in the real world. I always try to invent technologies that are practically effective and feasible but are also supported by theoretical principles. Some of my inventions have been adopted in commercial products which have been attracting many users/customers' interests.

Besides audio and acoustic signal processing, recently I am also interested in wider fields related to sound such as speech, audiology, psychoacoustics and linguistics.

Teaching | Current

Current

MECHENG370: Analogue Circuit Design (2015-2019), Electronics and Signal Processing (2020-) (Course Coordinator; 2015-)
MECHENG313: Real-time Software Design (2014-2017), Design of Real-time Software (2019-)
MECHENG705: Mechatronics Systems (2015-)
MECHENG726: Acoustics for Engineers (2017,2019-)

Past

MECHENG201: Electronics and Computing for Mechanical Engineers (2017)

Postgraduate supervision

M.E. Mr Francis Del Prado - From March 2015 to February 2016.
M.E. Ms Chenhui Jiang - From March 2019 to February 2020.
M.E. Ms Seo In Park - From March 2020 onwards.
PhD Dr Khairul Affendy Md Nor - From March 2016 to 2018. (Co-supervisor)
PhD Mr Benjamin Yen - From July 2016 onwards.
PhD Mr Nicholas Eng - From July 2018 orwards.

Distinctions/Honours

AUEA Emerging Researcher Award - 2016

Responsibilities

Mechatronics Course Advisor (2015-)

Mechatronics Teaching Group Convenor (2017, 2019-)

Deputy Director, Acoustics Research Centre (2017-)

Faculty Research Committee Member (2016-2018)

Areas of expertise

Array signal processing
Audio/acoustic/speech signal processing
Room acoustics
Psychology of hearing

Member of the Acoustics Research Centre: http://www.acoustics.auckland.ac.nz/

Head of Communication Acoustics Lab: http://cal.auckland.ac.nz/

Committees/Professional groups/Services

Senior member of IEEE.
Commitee member of IEEE NZ Signal Processing / Information Theory Chapter
- 2015: Vice Chair
- 2016 -: Chair
Member of ASNZ (Acoustical Society of New Zealand).
Member of ASJ (Acoustical Society of Japan).

Selected publications and creative works (Research Outputs)

Hioka, Y., James, J., & Watson, C. I. (2020). Masker design for real-time informational masking with mitigated annoyance. Applied Acoustics, 159.10.1016/j.apacoust.2019.107073
URL: http://hdl.handle.net/2292/48677
Other University of Auckland co-authors: Jesin James, Catherine Watson
Hioka, Y., Kingan, M., Schmid, G., McKay, R., & Stol, K. A. (2019). Design of an unmanned aerial vehicle mounted system for quiet audio recording. Applied Acoustics, 155, 423-427. 10.1016/j.apacoust.2019.06.001
URL: http://hdl.handle.net/2292/48208
Other University of Auckland co-authors: Michael Kingan, Ryan McKay, Karl Stol
Ollivier, B., Pepperell, A., Halstead, Z., & Hioka, Y. (2019). Noise robust bird call localisation using the Generalised Cross-Correlation with Phase Transform in the wavelet domain. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 146 (6), 4650-4663. 10.1121/1.5138593
URL: http://hdl.handle.net/2292/48431
Niwa, K., Hioka, Y., & Kobayashi, K. (2019). Microphone array source enhancement using subtractive PSD estimation model. APPLIED ACOUSTICS, 143, 239-249. 10.1016/j.apacoust.2018.07.007
URL: http://hdl.handle.net/2292/45674
Niwa, K., Hioka, Y., & Uematsu, H. (2018). Efficient audio rendering using angular region-wise source enhancement for 360° video. IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, 20 (11), 2871-2881. 10.1109/TMM.2018.2829187
URL: http://hdl.handle.net/2292/42413
Hioka, Y., & Niwa, K. (2017). Estimating power spectral density for spatial audio signal separation: An effective approach for practical applications. Acoustical Science and Technology, 38 (4), 175-184. 10.1250/ast.38.175
URL: http://hdl.handle.net/2292/35894
Hioka, Y., Tang, J. W., & Wan, J. (2016). Effect of adding artificial reverberation to speech-like masking sound. Applied Acoustics, 114, 171-178. 10.1016/j.apacoust.2016.07.014
URL: http://hdl.handle.net/2292/30125
Niwa, K., Hioka, Y., & Kobayashi, K. (2016). Optimal microphone array observation for clear recording of distant sound sources. IEEE Transactions on Audio, Speech and Language Processing, 24 (10), 1785-1795. 10.1109/TASLP.2016.2585879
URL: http://hdl.handle.net/2292/31856