Dr. Joshua H. Tyler, the first University of Tennessee Research Foundation (UTRF) Fellow at UTC, has developed an app that lets students, faculty and staff get hands-on with Advanced Waveform Resampling. Photo by Angela Foster.
When he started his master’s program at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga a few years ago, Dr. Joshua H. Tyler was working to prove a concept.
Now, he’s putting it in people’s hands.
Tyler, a postdoctoral researcher in electrical engineering in the College of Engineering and Computer Science, has developed a new application that allows users to test a technology designed to improve how audio sounds after it is compressed, shared and played back.
The application is built around Advanced Waveform Resampling (AWR), a method Tyler first introduced during his graduate research. What began as a back-of-the-napkin mathematical proof evolved into an industry-leading audio resampling method.
Tyler, the first University of Tennessee Research Foundation (UTRF) Fellow at UTC, has developed an app that lets students, faculty and staff get hands-on with AWR.
“Back then it was just a proof of concept,” Tyler said. “Now we’ve got something where we can actually put the process into people’s hands.”
With AWR moving from theory to application, Tyler is working to make that possible—one track at a time. The next step: inviting the UTC community to test the application and help refine it.
Ibis Audio QR code
Students, faculty and staff can request access to the AWR tool, download the application and begin converting their own audio files while providing feedback on performance and sound quality. Users must be on a UTC campus network.
“It’s been a long time coming to actually get this out and let people start using it,” he said.
Tyler’s project represents years of work that began during his master’s program and continued through his doctoral studies at UTC, where he earned his bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in electrical engineering and computational engineering. Along the way, he expanded his focus beyond signal processing to include software development, security and commercialization.
That trajectory stands out to his faculty mentor.
“To me, it says that anything is possible with hard work, dedication and mentorship,” Guerry and UC Foundation Professor of Electrical Engineering Don Reising said.
The idea behind AWR is simple, even if the math behind it is not: keep audio sounding as close as possible to the original recording, even after it has been compressed for streaming, downloading or playback on everyday devices.
Reising said he saw early on that Tyler’s work had the potential to move beyond the lab and into something people could use.
“The challenge,” Reising said, “was to identify the approaches that were currently in commercial use.”
Whether music is played through headphones, a car stereo or a phone speaker, it typically passes through a series of processes that can degrade sound quality.
“As an artist, you want people to hear exactly what you created. As a listener, you want to hear it the way it was meant to sound,” Tyler said.
In short, he is chasing the kind of sound quality listeners often associate with vinyl or tape without the limitations of those formats.
“AWR was invented as a way to preserve the acoustic detail in high-quality audio so it could become more portable,” Tyler explained. “Now we’ve got a tool where someone can take their high-quality audio, put it through the app and then output files at a lower data rate but still maintain pristine quality. I’ve got it to where I can listen to what is essentially master quality audio on my AirPod Pros.”
Under a maturation grant from the UTRF, testing conducted during his research showed that AWR could outperform existing industry-standard methods in preserving audio detail.
“We put it under a microscope,” Tyler said. “We analyzed the waveform that results from different compression methods and saw that AWR was significantly better.”
The technology’s potential extends beyond a single use case.
“Its use cases are very wide,” Reising said. “The challenge is identifying a need within the associated use case’s space and getting buy-in from the users and commercial entities within that space.”
“As an artist, you want people to hear exactly what you created,” Dr. Joshua H. Tyler said. “As a listener, you want to hear it the way it was meant to sound.”
At this stage, the focus is shifting from demonstration to understanding how people use the tool and what can be improved.
“We’re letting people stress-test the system and see how it responds to their usage,” Tyler said. “We want them to convert their own audio and tell us if they can hear a difference.”
Tyler emphasized that user privacy is built into the application. While basic account information and usage data are collected to help improve the app, the audio itself is not accessed.
“I wouldn’t be able to hear what tracks they’re using,” he said. “All I’ve got is basic file information and how the app is being used.”
The testing phase includes an optional feedback form that allows users to report technical issues or describe their listening experience. Tyler said feedback is critical.
“What you think people want and what people actually want are different,” he said. “Customer discovery is key to making something people actually want to use.”
Tyler said support from UTC faculty and campus partners helped move the project forward, including collaboration with the UTRF.
Dr. Kumar Yelamarthi, dean of the UTC College of Engineering and Computer Science, said the project marks a key step toward broader use of research.
“Seeing this project advance from development into internal testing is an important milestone for our college,” Yelamarthi said. “It reflects the curiosity that drives discovery, the critical thinking needed to transform ideas into usable tools, and the commitment to creating value for our community. This UTRF fellowship is a strong example of how meaningful connections between research, innovation and real-world needs can lead to technologies that make a genuine impact.”
Added Tyler: “It’s nice to be able to say we actually have something that can go to market. It shows that the process works—taking something from research and turning it into a real product.”
That long-term goal remains in sight. He hopes to continue refining the application based on user feedback before expanding access beyond UTC and eventually offering it as a commercial service.
Tyler will present his AWR work at UTC’s Spring Research and Arts Conference on Wednesday, April 15, offering another opportunity for the campus community to learn about the research and the technology behind it.
For Tyler, the goal has remained consistent throughout the project.
“The whole point of AWR was putting as little separation between what the musician or the producer develops and what the listener hears,” he said, “and on making the technology easy to use and easy to understand.”
Learn more
UTC College of Engineering and Computer Science
Department of Electrical Engineering
UTC Spring Research and Arts Conference
Screenshot of the Audio Converter Pro application showing a list of audio files queued for conversion, with settings for file format, sample rate and output directory.
