Source: http://english.ioa.cas.cn/

Institute of Acoustics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IACAS) was established in 1964. As one of the national institutions, IACAS aims to be one of world’s leading R&D center in the fields of acoustics and network communications and serves for the nation’s needs on related fields.

IACAS is active in the research fields of underwater acoustics, acoustical transducers, noise and vibration control, communication acoustics, ultrasonics and acoustical micro-electric mechanical system (AMEMS), verbal acoustics and speech signal processing, digital audio and video, network communications and related system integration.

IACAS has 18 laboratories (or research centers) in Beijing, including 1 State Key Laboratory on Acoustical Field & Information and 1 State Engineering Center on Network and New Media Technology. There are 3 divisions located in Hainan, Shanghai and Qingdao, respectively and 1 technology transformation center in Jiaxing.

IACAS is well equipped with modern facilities such as audio-frequency acoustics laboratory, high intensity sound laboratory, AMEMS laboratory, underwater measurement laboratory, ultrasonic testing laboratory, verbal acoustics laboratory and acoustic experimental ships with essential equipment.

Currently there are 772 staff members in IACAS, including 679 scientific or technical personnel, among whom there are 4 Academicians of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 13 outstanding young scholars of “Hundred Talents Program”, 102 senior professional and technical personnel , and 235 associate senior professional and technical personnel.

IACAS also takes the responsibility of providing education and training for graduate students in the first-level disciplinary of acoustics and signal processing. At present, the institute hosts 199 doctoral candidates, 211 master candidates and 29 post-doctors.

Since its establishment, IACAS has accomplished many research projects with great achievements in acoustics and signal processing. In 2008, IACAS undertook 446 projects in all, including items of the National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program), Hi-Tech Research and Development Program of China (863 Program), National Key Technology R&D Program, High-tech Industrial Projects, CAS Knowledge Innovation Program and so on.

The “Underwater Security System” is an outstanding research fruit yielded in 2008. It is a new kind of safeguard system with self-owned intellectual property rights, jointly researched by IACAS and related units. The system was successfully applied in 2008 Olympiad and perfectly accomplished the safeguard tasks for Olympic Games and Paralympic Games. Owing to the wonderful performance, CAS underwater security group was awarded the “Special Honor” by Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad. The research on “Development of Collaboration Support Environment for Services Running, Management and Control” is a key subject of “863” Program undertaken by IACAS. The research meets the urgent demand of the future development of networks and carries out studies on the conditions for the combination of different networks. It emphasizes on the breakthrough of key technology and tries to solve the problem of source distribution and collaboration technology in networks. IACAS also develops a new kind of digital movie player. Compared to the traditional film player, it is conveniently portable and is able to withstand dust, unstable voltages which are common in rural areas, and shaking.

Since the implementing of the Knowledge Innovation Program in 1999, IACAS has paid great attention to patents application and software registrations. In 2008, it had 11 registered achievements, 5 on theory and 6 on application. It also received 3 science and technology awards.

IACAS greatly values the international exchanges and cooperation. It establishes long-term friendly partnership and carries out extensive and effective collaboration with many well-known universities and institutions, such as Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, the University of Sheffield (U.K.), Sultan Qaboos University (Oman), Curting University (Australia) and so on. IACAS also successfully held many International Conferences in China, such as ICSCP 2000, ICTCA 2001, WCU 2005, INTER-NOISE 2008 and so on. The 37th International Congress and Exhibition on Noise Control Engineering (INTER-NOISE 2008) was held in Shanghai in October of 2008. The congress attracted great attention of the experts and scholars in the field of noise control engineering all over the world. 970 delegates and 36 exhibitors from 42 countries and regions attended the conference and exhibition.

In addition, IACAS is the sponsor to Acoustics Society of Chinese (ASC) and 7 academic journals, including Acta Acustica (Chinese and English Version), Applied Acoustics, Microcomputer Application, Technical Acoustics, Chinese Journal of Medical Imaging Technology and Chinese Journal of Interventional Imaging and Therapy. The National Acoustic Standardization Technology Committee, the Environmental Physics Branch of Chinese Society for Environmental Sciences and some other academic organizations also affiliate to IACAS. The institute is playing a more and more important role in acoustic studies in China.