NTNU

Department of Telematics

Telematics research

Leif Arne Rønningen, PhD

professor - networked multimedia systems, system development

mail:         leifarne@item.ntnu.no
tel:           +47 7359 2665
mobil:     +47 9003 0473

Multimedia Lab: Caruso, room A264/A268

Courses and supervision:

TTM4100 Communication - Services and Networks

TTM4142 Networked Multimedia Systems

Experts in Team

EiT - Village

Supervision:

Project students, 3-8 each autumn

Master thesis students, 3-8 each spring

PhD students, 2-3 continuously

Background

Leif Arne Rønningen graduated as MSc in 1976 and PhD in 1982, from the Dep. of telematics, NTNU. He has more than 20 years of experience from research, development, project management, marketing, general- and top management and teaching. Positions held are as diving instructor, project manager, marketing-, research-, managing- and technical director, and steering-board member. 'Some selected publications', see below, outlines parts of the research carried out. From 1995-99 he was engaged by Telenor as a consultant, and was involved in the introduction of digital TV and specification work on future digital TV in Europa (DVB, DigiTAG and NorDig). In 1999 he was research director at Dep. of signal processing and system design, SINTEF. From January 2000 he is a professor at the Dep. of telematics, NTNU.

See CV

Leif Arne Rønningen is a member of the opera company TrønderOperaen, one of the partners in Musikkteatret i Trondheim. He is presently chairman of the board (second period). Special responsibility: experimentation and new technologies. Responsible for applying video technology and arts as part of the design set of the opera Thora paa Rimol, staged in 2002 and 2005, and ‘Spor’ in 2005 . Examples of acting in opera choir: Bajazzo by Leoncavallo, Carmina Burana by Orff, Orpheus in the underworld by Offenbach, Thora paa Rimol by Borgstrøm, Rigoletto by Verdi (cooperation between TrønderOperaen and DNO, Olavshallen), The magic flute, Motzart, and Cavalleria Rusticana. Examples of acting in TrønderOperaen soloist groups: baritone parts from Cosi fan tutte, The magic fluite and other Mozart operas. Participation in classical church concerts and church music plays in the Nidaros Cathedral over many years as member of the cathedral choirs. CD recordings with opera choir: Heimferd by Irgens-Jenssen, and Thora fra Rimol by Borgstrøm. Participation in several radio and TV productions.

From 2003 he is a board memeber of TEKS, Trondheim Elektroniske KunstSenter (center of electronic arts). He is also a board member of the company VisualKnowledge, and Stiftelsen Thora.

Current research areas:

Quality Shaping - Adaptive Scene Resolution & Traffic Control in IP nets
Object oriented scenes & services
Distributed Multimedia Plays (DMP), applied to musical theatre
Future Multimedia Home Platforms (including DVB MHP)
Streaming and streaming control
3D video, segmentation, presentation, object tracking.
Hardware/Software Co-design
Application of video in arts (opera, musical plays, dance, concerts, etc)

Present research focus:

The main features of DMP can be summarized as follows:

'The Distributed Multimedia Plays Systems Architecture (DMP) provides 3D multiview video and 3D sound collaboration between performers over packet networks. To guarantee the end-to-end time delay less than 10-20 milliseconds, and obtain high network resource utilization, the perceived quality of audio-visual content is allowed to vary with the traffic in the network. Parameters that are included in the quality concept, and that can be controlled adaptively, are the end-to-end delay, the number of 3D scene sub-objects and their temporal and spatial resolution, adaptive and scalable compression of sub-scenes, and the number of views. To approach the natural level of human perception, the quality has to be increased to levels that temporarily require data rates of Giga bits per second between users. An integrated resolution and traffic control algorithm denoted the Quality Shaping algorithm, using traffic classes, measurement and forecasting of traffic, feedback control and traffic shaping (packet drop and source scaling), provides the necessary control. Actual DMP applications from arts are jazz sessions, song lessons, and distributed opera. Other applications are in coming generations TV (MHP extended with DMP), games, education, and near natural-seeing virtual meetings.'.

To validate the Quality Shaping scene resolution & traffic control algorithm, a European-wide video IP network shall be outlined, modeled and simulated
Time-varying resolution of 3D object oriented scenes will be tested
The Quality Algorithm shall be applied to DMP networks.
MHP - ten years from now

Papers, talks and technical reports 2005-2002:

Adaptive Scene and Traffic Control in Networked Multimedia Systems, ERCIM News No. 63, October 2005. http://www.ercim.org/publication/Ercim_News/

Adaptive Scene and Traffic Control in DMP. IADAT tcn-2005, Portsmouth, September 2005

Remote Control of Multimedia Show Projection Presentation, Nov04, ITEM, NTNU. Leif Arne Rønningen

Distributed Multimedia Plays. Virtual Dinner Memo, LARMemeo-04N10 v1.5, Nov 04, ITEM, NTNU. Leif Arne Rønningen

The Melhus Sports, Opera and Concert Hall Memo, LARMemeo-03N11 v1.1, Oct 04, ITEM, NTNU. Leif Arne Rønningen

Scalable, distributed wireless transmission Talk, IET, NTNU, Oct 04. Leif Arne Rønningen

On the use of classical control systems based AQM for rate adaptive streaming media Paper, Nordic Teletraffic Seminar, Sept 2004. Arne Lie, O M Aamo and Leif Arne Rønningen

'Adaptive Audio-Visual Resolution Control and Traffic Control in Packet Networks ' Talk, Stanford University, CA, May 2004. Leif Arne Rønningen

'Adaptive AV Resolution & Traffic Control in Packet Networks ' Talk, University of California, Berkeley, March 2004. Leif Arne Rønningen

'Distributed Multimedia Plays with QoS guaranties over IP ' Paper, Wedelmusic 2003. 3rd International Converence on WEB Delivering of Music. Arne Lie and Leif Arne Rønningen

Routing, Caching and 'Carouselling' in Satellite TV Networks Technical report, LARmemo-03N10, Dept. of telematics, NTNU, Oct 03 . Leif Arne Rønningen

Videoscenografi for Thora. Talk, Sangerutdanningen - viktig for regional opera? Seminar ved Griegakademiet, UiB, 12Feb03 . Leif Arne Rønningen

'Performance control of high-capacity IP networks for colloborative virtual environments'. Paper, IBC 2002, Amsterdam Sept. 2002. Leif Arne Rønningen and Arne Lie.

'Transient behaviour of an adaptive traffic control scheme'. Paper, EUNICE '2002/IFIP WG6.7 Workshop, Trondheim Sept 2002. Leif Arne Rønningen and Arne Lie

Scientific papers:

About 25 papers are presented at conferences in Europe and America.

Presentations:

A large number of presentations (> 200) has been carried out (conferences, scientific periodicals, newspapers, radio, TV, marketing).

Publications:

More than 100 scientific reports, papers included. Several works have combined psychological, sociological, pedagogical and technical approach. A large number of development-, economic-, marketing- and management reports and plans

Some selected publications before 2002:

'Analyses of a traffic shaping scheme'. Paper presented at the 10th International Teletraffic Congress, Montreal 1983 (from Dr.ing. thesis). The paper presents a new network access flow control scheme called 'traffic shaping' (later generally adopted as a basic concept, e.g. in ATM networks).

'Fjernundervisning - et realistisk alternativ?' Article by LAR in the book 'Det data-assisterte samfunn', Norsk voksenpedagogisk institutt 1988 (red. W Rønning, R Ingvaldsen), and 'Teknologisk grunnlag for fremtidens fjernundervisning'. Paper presented by LAR at the conference 'Det data-assisterte samfunn', Trondheim 1989. Part of the proceedings 'Teknologi og tilpasning' Norsk voksenpedagogisk institutt 1989 (red. W Rønning, R Ingvaldsen). Distant interactive learning using a combination of terrestrial communication networks and MAC satellite TV was introduced (this was before the term 'multimedia' and the Web were invented). Pedagogical models for distant, interactive learning were presented.

'Development and marketing of integrated circuits for MAC TV'. Nordic VLSI 11oct1989, and 'A multi Conditional Access MAC Receiver Architecture'. Nordic VLSI, June1989. Architecture and HW/SW co-design of a MAC TV decoder and chipset. Specification of access control system for pay-TV, Eurocrypt S

'Architecture of a Very Fast Packet Switch'. Paper presented at the XI International Switching Symposium, Florence (Italy) 7-11 May 1984, and 'Høyhastighets pakkesvitsjede datanett'. Elab report STF44 F86072. May 1986. System-on-chip, HW/SW co-design. Architecture of a high-performance packet switch (> 50 Mbps per link) and VLSI circuits. Adaptation of 'window' protocols for high data rates.

'Custom integrated circuits for GSM mobile stations'. Nordic VLSI 3jan91. Based on the GSM specifications, architectures for two generations ASICs for the mobile unit were proposed. SW/HW Co-design was carried out.

'The Combined Digital Satellite Broadcast and Internet System'. Telenor Satellite Services, 7feb99. A network architecture combining satellite broadcasting and Internet, in order to support DVB 'Enhanced broadcast', 'interactive TV' and 'Internet access' was proposed and analyzed. The concepts of 'layer-structured multimedia applications' and 'distributed multimedia plays' were introduced. Adaptive algorithms and architectures for adaptive use of caches and carousels for Web and TV objects were described.

'Optimization of Multimedia Home Network Architecture'. Telenor Satellite Services, 28feb99. About iterated design methodology, generalized object oriented processing structures, home network architectures, unified user interface/service control, how to speed up Java, HDTV MPEG-2 Picture-in-Picture decoder, hardware/Java co-design of protocols, security strategy, personal mobile IPv6 addressing in satellite networks.