Prof. Dr.-Ing. Christian Bergler

For marine biologists, the interpretation and understanding of underwater audio recordings is essential. Based on such recordings, possible conclusions about behavior, communication and social interactions of marine animals can be made. Despite a large number of biological studies on the subject of orca vocalizations, it is still difficult to recognize a structure or semantic significance of the orca signals in order to be able to derive any patterns of behavior.

 

Due to a lack of  techniques and computational tools, hundreds of hours of underwater recordings are still listened to by marine biologists in order to detect potential orca vocalizations. In a post process these identified orca signals will be analyzed and categorized. The main goal is to provide a robust method which is able to automatically detect orca calls within underwater audio recordings.

 

A robust detection of orca signals in connection with the associated situational video recordings and behaviour descriptions (provided by several researchers on site) can provide potential information about communication (kind of a language model) and behaviors (e.g. hunting, socializing). Furthermore, the orca signal detection algorithm can be used in conjunction with a localization software to provide the researchers on the field a more efficient way of searching orca populations. For more information about the project please contact me at christian.bergler@fau.de.

 

The joint efforts of the entire project team to decode the language of the Orcas will be featured on German television (3Sat). The documentation can be watched under the following link:

https://www.3sat.de/wissen/wissenschaftsdoku/die-sprache-der-wale-102.html

 

Since 04/2018: PhD Student, Pattern Recognition Lab, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg

• Research focus on Deep Learning Applied to Animal Linguistics in particular the analysis of underwater audio recordings of marine animals (killer whales)

04/2016 – 03/2018: Software Engineer and external PhD Student (FAU), e.sigma Technology GmbH, Ilmenau

• Software developer for communication, voice processing, and guidance systems (automated speech recognition, text-to-speech systems, language model adaption)

03/2014 – 03/2016: Master of Engineering in Information Technology and Automation, Ostbayerische Technical University of Applied Science (OTH), Amberg – Weiden, Location: Amberg

• Focus on information technology
• Master thesis: Parametrization of various speaker characteristics for the generation of emotions within a High Quality Limited Domain Text – to – Speech – System (HQLD-TTS)

10/2010 – 03/2014: Bachelor of Engineering in Industrial Engineering, Ostbayerische Technical University of Applied Science (OTH), Amberg – Weiden, Location: Weiden

• Focus on mechanical engineering
• Bachelor thesis: Development of a freeTTS-based speech-synthesis system for the training of air traffic controllers

09/2009 – 07/2010: Vocational Diploma (Fachabitur), Berufsoberschule (BOS), Schwandorf

 

Teaching Experience

• since 03/2019: PhD Student, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU)
  • Exercises: Introduction to Pattern Recognition (IntroPR), Deep Learning
  • Seminar: Automatische Analyse von Stimm-, Sprech- und Sprachstörungen bei Sprachpathologien
  • Praktikum: Representation Learning
• 10/2011 – 06/2012: Student teaching assistant, Ostbayerische Technical University of Applied Science (OTH), Amberg – Weiden, Location: Weiden
  • Modules: Mathematics/Statistics, Data Processing and Programming, Physics, Industrial Economics

 

Practical Experience

• 04/2016 – 03/2018: Software Engineer, e.sigma Technology GmbH, Ilmenau
  • Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) for Air Traffic Control (ATC)
  • Controller Pilot Data Link Communication (CPDLC)
  • Advanced Voice Processing (Text – to – Speech (TTS) Engine, limited Domain TTS Voice Creation)
  • Communication Framework (VoIP Standard)
  • Realtime Audio and Video Streaming
  • Distributed System Communication via Message Broker Systems
• 08/2013 – 11/2015: Student trainee, e.sigma Technology GmbH, Ilmenau
  • Software development, testing, maintenance, integration and documentation for the java-based freeTTS text-to-speech engine
• 08/2012 – 01/2013: Student trainee, Continental Automotive GmbH, Regensburg
  • Support programming, integration and verification of Manufacturing Execution Systems (=MES) for all worldwide Continental
    Chassis & Safety plants

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Type	Title	Status
BA thesis	Animal-Independent Signal Enhancement Using Deep Learning	finished
MA thesis	Contextual Meta Knowledge Integrated into a Fully-Automated Multi-Stage Deep Learning Framework for Killer Whale Individual Classification	finished
BA thesis	Deep Orca Image Denoising Using Machine-Generated Binary Killer Whale Masks	finished
MA thesis	Killer Whale Sound Source Localization Using Deep Learning	finished
BA thesis	Web-Based Server-Client Software Framework for Killer Whale Indivirual Recognition	finished
BA thesis	Automatic Bird Individual Recognition in Multi-Channel Recording Scenarios	finished
MA thesis	A Robust Intrusive perceptual audio quality assessment based on convolutional neural network	finished
BA thesis	Start, follow, read, stop: Incorporating new steps into end-to-end full-page handwriting recognition method	finished
MA thesis	Orca Individual Identification based on Image Classification Using Deep Learning	finished
BA thesis	Killer Whale Sound Type Generation Using Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN)	finished
BA thesis	Killer Whale Echolocation Click Detection in Noisy Underwater Recordings Using Deep Learning	finished
MA thesis	Killer Whale Matriline Classification based on Deep Learning	finished
MA thesis	Deep Feature Learning and Clustering – A Fully Unsupervised Approach for Identifying Orca Communication Patterns	finished
MA thesis	Generative Adversarial Networks for Speech Vocoding	finished
MA thesis	Semi-supervised Feature Learning for Orca Audio Signals using a Convolutional Autoencoder	finished