2017 International Conference on Automotive Audio - Keynotes

Day One Keynote:
"In Car UX - the Deep Immersion Experience Far Beyond Sound"

by Armin Prommersberger - Engineering / R&D
Senior Vice President of Technology Lifestyle Audio, Harman
and, Chris Ludwig - Engineering/R&D
Senior Director of the EPIC Experience Team

With a career in audio and connected technologies spanning more than 25 years, Armin Prommersberger applies his entrepreneurial spirit, passion for music and business leadership experience in his current role as the Senior Vice President of Technology for HARMAN International's Lifestyle Audio Division. He attributes the foundation for his leadership approach to his early days as an entrepreneur with four successful companies founded in the areas of music production, mobile media after sales, consumer electronics industry consulting, and multiphysical simulation. Armin first joined HARMAN in 2008 and has served a number of roles to support strategic developments for HARMAN's global Automotive Audio and Lifestyle Audio divisions. Today, he plays an integral role in technology development and investment for HARMAN's Lifestyle division with a focus on shaping future experiences for Automotive and Consumer Audio.

Chris Ludwig is the Senior Director of the EPIC Experience Team at Harman International, where he leads HARMAN's innovation of the total in-car experience through sound, technology and design. Previously, he lead the global acoustic systems engineering team for automotive, and was in charge of all HARMAN branded audio sound signatures, including Mark Levinson, JBL, Infinity, Harman Kardon and Lexicon. Prior to joining HARMAN, Chris spent a decade at Bose Corporation where he was responsible for North America and Japan automotive audio system design and tuning. At Bose, he was also in charge of local research and advanced development for next generation automotive audio technologies.

Day Two Keynote:
"Autonomous Cars and Their Demand for High Audio Quality in Entertainment and Communication"

by Sebastian Scharrer - Automotive Audio Division,
Product Manager , Fraunhofer IIS

M.Eng. Dipl.-Ing. Sebastian Scharrer, Product Manager for Automotive Audio at Fraunhofer IIS, knows what it means bringing ideas to series products. For over 10 years he has been working on the core of embedded systems to enable technology to be used in consumer products like smart phones, set top boxes or cars.

Since 2013 he has been responsible for the strategic orientation of the Automotive Audio Division at Fraunhofer IIS. Together with a team of 21 members he invented an award-winning technology called Symphoria which made high-quality 3-D sound in cars ready for series production. Constantly expanding the portfolio with intelligent audio post-processing technologies they will raise the customer experience of automobile entertainment systems to completely new levels of comfort and quality.

Besides that he gives lectures on the "Technische Hochschule Nürnberg" for the faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology to inspire students what they can achieve with the knowledge they got mediated.

Day Three Invited Paper:
"Integration of Active Noise Control in Future IVI System Designs – How to Deal with Low Latency Requirements?"

by :Dr. Rolf Schirmacher - Active Sound Technology ,
Managing Director, Müller-BBM GmbH

Rolf Schirmacher studied Physics at Göttingen University and received his Ph.D. there with a thesis on the application of fast adaptive IIR filters for active noise control in 1995. He then joined Müller-BBM in Munich and continued working on a broad range of ANC and AVC applications, including marine structures, railcars and automotive applications.

In 2002, he received the Lothar Cremer prize of the German Acoustical Society for his outstanding work on ANC.

Since 2009, he serves as Managing Director of the then established Müller-BBM Active Sound Technology GmbH.