The primary goals of this project were to create a system capable of autonomously tuning five strings accurately and quickly, within 100-250 milliseconds, dependent on the musical interval traversed, and with an accuracy of six cents - the musical interval barely noticeable to the human ear. A load cell with a guitar string through it is utilized as the primary determinant of frequency, and motors coupled to tuning pegs change the tension of these strings. This operation is performed by the load cell referencing a lookup table that details what encoder position the motor must reach in order for the string to achieve a certain tension which corresponds to the target frequency of the tuning operation. A Fast Fourier Transform is performed on readings from a photoresistor system to determine the true string frequency, solenoids actuate the strings, and the device is controlled from a local server built on Node.js.

• This report represents the work of one or more WPI undergraduate students submitted to the faculty as evidence of completion of a degree requirement. WPI routinely publishes these reports on its website without editorial or peer review.

Creator

• Hennigan, Ryan W.
• Thornton, Victoria J.
• Doyle, Fiona A.
• Le, Vien Phuong T.
• Smith, Garrett G.

Subject

• Project-Based Learning
• Inclusion
• Computing
• Culture
• Community

Publisher

• Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Identifier

• 23196
• E-project-050621-155213

Keyword

• Autonomous Instrument
• Music
• PID
• Autonomous Tuning
• Fast Fourier Transform Signal Processing
• Arduino Due

Advisor

• Barton, Scott D
• Doroz, Yarkin
• Roberts, Charles Davis

Year

• 2021

Date created

• 2021-05-06

Resource type

• Major Qualifying Project

Major

• Computer Science
• Electrical & Computer Engineering

Rights statement

• In Copyright

Last modified

• 2021-08-29