Project

# Title Team Members TA Documents Sponsor
5 Passive Radar
Benjamin Du
Kyle Rogers
Rushik Desai
Kyle Michal design_document3.pdf
final_paper3.pdf
other3.zip
other2.pdf
presentation1.pdf
proposal1.pdf
Team Members: Rushik Desai (rhdesai3), Benjamin Du (bldu2), Kyle Rogers (krroger2)

We will be working on the Passive Radar project idea proposed by Professor Levchenko.

General Description: Radar technology has existed for many decades. Primarily, radars have been implemented using active transceiver systems. Passive radars are a supplement to active radars. The benefits of passive radars are they don't transmit, and they are low-powered devices. Current commercial applications and services of passive radars are expensive, while hobbyist designs vary in degree in terms of cost and performance.

Solution: We propose to create an affordable (<$100) and accurate (<10m), community based, passive radar system consisting of a network of 4+ receivers which are connected to a central server.

The complexity of this project can be broken down into three main challenges:
1. Creating a valid time stamp for a correctly received transponder signal.
2. The integration of different interfaces and systems: power over ethernet, RF front end, GPS.
3. Network communication between the receivers and a central server, which uses trilateration in order to compute the aircraft’s position.

Subsystems:
RF Front End (Receives transponder signal, decodes it, converts it to digital data)
GPS (GPSDO for time granularity/accuracy, time stamp generator)
Microcontroller (processes GPS time data and verifies transponder data before sending it to the)
POE (provides power and allows for central server communication)
Network communication (uses a hosted website to compute position as well as display data)

More specifications/details about the project can be found in our original post:
https://courses.engr.illinois.edu/ece445/pace/view-topic.asp?id=30316

Automatic Piano Tuner

Joseph Babbo, Colin Wallace, Riley Woodson

Automatic Piano Tuner

Featured Project

# Automatic Piano Tuner

Team Members:

- Colin Wallace (colinpw2)

- Riley Woodson (rileycw2)

- Joseph Babbo (jbabbo2)

# Problem

Piano tuning is a time-consuming and expensive process. An average piano tuning will cost in the $100 - $200 range and a piano will have to be retuned multiple times to maintain the correct pitch. Due to the strength required to alter the piano pegs it is also something that is difficult for the less physically able to accomplish.

# Solution

We hope to bring piano tuning to the masses by creating an easy to use product which will be able to automatically tune a piano by giving the key as input alongside playing the key to get the pitch differential and automatically turning the piano pegs until they reach the correct note.

# Solution Components

## Subsystem 1 - Motor Assembly

A standard tuning pin requires 8-14 nm of torque to successfully tune. We will thus need to create a motor assembly that is able to produce enough torque to rotate standard tuning pins.

## Subsystem 2 - Frequency Detector/Tuner

The device will use a microphone to gather audio measurements. Then a microprocessor processes the audio data to detect the pitch and determine the difference from the desired frequency. This can then generate instructions for the motor; direction to turn pegs and amount to turn it by.

## Subsystem 3 - User Interface/Display Panel

A small but intuitive display and button configuration can be used for this device. It will be required for the user to set the key being played using buttons on the device and reading the output of the display. As the device will tune by itself after hearing the tone, all that is required to display is the current key and octave. A couple of buttons will suffice to be able to cycle up and down keys and octaves.

## Subsystem 4 - Replaceable Battery/Power Supply

Every commercial product should use standard replaceable batteries, or provide a way for easy charging. As we want to develop a handheld device, so that the device doesn’t have to drag power wires into the piano, we will need a rechargeable battery pack.

# Criterion For Success

The aim of the Automatic Piano Tuner is to allow the user to automatically tune piano strings based on a key input alongside playing a note. We have several goals to help us meet this aim:

- Measure pitch accurately, test against known good pitches

- Motor generates enough torque to turn the pegs on a piano

- Tuner turns correctly depending on pitch

- Easy tuning of a piano by a single untrained person

Project Videos