The Discipline of Signal Processing [Reflections]

At the 38th International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing (ICASSP) in Vancouver, Canada, Jose M.F. Moura, in his acceptance speech for the IEEE Signal Processing Society Award, shared a number of thoughts that I found worthy of further reflection because they are an intricate part of the identity of signal processing as a technical discipline. The first of these thoughts was the difficulties many of us have experienced trying to explain what signal processing is to someone with no significant background in technical disciplines. The second of these thoughts was a recollection of the idea of "Signal Processing Inside," presented in his column by then editor-in-chief of IEEE Signal Processing Magazine and current IEEE Signal Processing Society president, K.J. Ray Liu, [S1], and highlighted during ICASSP 2007 as a motto describing signal processing as a "phantom technology," that was pervasive but at the same time a key contributor to technological advances from a position that is not readily apparent to the general public.