Technical & Applied Article

History of the Institute of Acoustics and Speech Communications of TU Dresden

Technische Universität Dresden, Institut für Akustik und Sprachkommunikation, 01062 Dresden, Germany

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Received: 4 May 2025
Accepted: 30 August 2025

Abstract

At the TU (formerly TH) Dresden, acoustics is part of the faculty of electrical engineering. Its development started in 1911 when Heinrich Barkhausen was appointed Professor for “low-current technology", which was an umbrella for both, acoustics and communications engineering. Barkhausen contributed to the field of acoustics, e.g., with the first device for loudness measurement. After the war and the retirement of Barkhausen, several new institutes were established from which we mention: (1) the Institute of Electro- and Building Acoustics led by Walter Reichardt, contributing to many fields of technical acoustics, and (2) the Institute of Telecommunications Engineering supervised by Kurt Freitag, contributing to speech acoustics with the design of a vocoder and the measurement of speech quality. When the GDR performed a “higher education reform" in 1969, the acoustical activities were concentrated in a laboratory for “communications and data acquisition" which included five chairs in acoustics, sensors, speech, and measurement. This step took into account the growing role of computer technology. After the political changes in 1990, the number of chairs was reduced to two which is expressed by the today’s name “Institute of Acoustics and Speech Communications". The paper is finished by an overview on the recent activities of the institute.