This internship is hosted in collaboration between Skyted and GIPSA-lab in the context of research and innovation on confidential communication systems.
GIPSA-lab is a Joint Research Unit between CNRS and Université Grenoble Alpes. With 350 people including about 150 doctoral students, GIPSA-lab is internationally recognized for the research achieved in Automatic & Diagnostics, Signal Image Information Data Sciences, and Speech and Cognition. In the latter domains, it includes multidisciplinary expertise allying (i) algorithmic developments, computational modelling and machine learning, (ii) phonetics and language sciences, and (iii) behavioral and neurocognitive experiments
Skyted is a French startup developing new silent communication technologies to enable users to have calls in public environments while preserving confidentiality and avoiding disturbing others.

🔎Skyted mission

To offer “new nomads” (travelers on trains, planes, or in taxis) and professionals in open spaces or call centers around the world, silent and seamless communication solutions.
One way to communicate silently is speaking with the lowest possible voice level while still voicing the vocal cords, which we call Ultra-Low Voice (ULV). When the voice level remains sufficiently below the surrounding noise, it becomes inaudible to nearby individuals, ensuring discreet and confidential communication.

🎯Problematic

In Skyted, we developed a special headset, called the Skyted 320, adapted to capture ULV even in noisy environments. Unlike standard headsets, this device requires speakers to significantly reduce their vocal level, raising fundamental questions about the mechanisms of adaptation to ULV. One possible aid to this adaptation is to provide the speaker with amplified auditory feedback of their own voice, which is expected to trigger a reduction in vocal level from the speaker (a regulatory phenomenon known as the “sidetone effect”). However, the actual benefit of sidetone for regulating voice level, the time required for each speaker to adapt, and the variability across individuals remain largely unexplored. In addition, speaking at such reduced intensity may induce hypoarticulation phenomena, potentially impacting intelligibility. A key challenge of this
internship is therefore to study not only how sidetone supports ULV adaptation, but also how to disentangle the effects of reduced intensity from hypoarticulation, and to characterize inter-individual strategies of adaptation.

💼 Objectives

This internship will address the following research objectives:
1. Mechanisms of adaptation to ULV: Characterize how speakers reduce and stabilize their vocal effort in ULV conditions.
2. Role of sidetone: Evaluate the extent to which sidetone facilitates regulation of vocal effort in ULV (different sidetone levels).
3. Inter-individual variability: Investigate how factors such as age, sex, vocal profile, or prior experience with headsets affect adaptation to ULV.
4. Hypoarticulation effects: Analyze how the ULV level influences articulation clarity and speech intelligibility.
5. Develop methods to disentangle vocal effort reduction from hypoarticulation, to better understand each phenomenon independently.

🔎 Desired profile and work conditions

We are looking for a final-year master’s research student specializing in acoustics, psychoacoustics, or cognitive science. Knowledge in Python and Signal processing would be appreciated. A good English level is mandatory.
The internship will take place in Skyted offices in Labège (Toulouse). During the internship, a two-week trip to GIPSA-lab in Grenoble is to be expected to conduct experiment.
Work will be supervised by Maeva Garnier on the GIPSA-lab side and by Nicolas Aegerter on the Skyted side. The internship is planned to start in February 2026.
The gratification for the internship can be discussed with the candidate.

How to apply:
Please send CV and cover letters to Maeva Garnier : maeva.garnier@grenoble-inp.fr
And Nicolas Aegerter : n.aegerter@skyted.io