Project

# Title Team Members TA Documents Sponsor
12 PC Buttonpad
 Adit Umakanth
Stephanie Jaster
Yicong Dong
 Mengze Sha design_document4.pdf
final_paper1.pdf
presentation1.pptx
proposal3.pdf
## Names {NetIDs}

- Yicong Dong {yicongd2}
- Stephanie Jaster {sjaster2}
- Aditya Umakanth {adityau2}

## Project Description

### General Info.

Keyboards and mice work well, but are not the quickest way to interact with computers. There are some actions people perform on a regular basis that take many mouse clicks or keyboard button presses, but could be condensed down into one simple press of a button. Our solution is a compact and portable unit with buttons that can be connected to ***any*** PC. These buttons will perform whatever repeated actions the user assigns it.

### Uniqueness (Invention or Innovation)

Macro buttons are not new and exist on some keyboards and specialized keypads on the market. Our project is different because it promises to let the user customize the button functionality to their wishes instead of relying on forced presets, and at a much lower cost.

### Alternatives or Competitors

In addition to those macro keyboards and keypads on the market, one option would have been our alternative solution that was a small touch screen powered by a Raspberry Pi connected to the user’s computer. A touch screen allows more specific actions and contextual feedback that would be impossible with just physical buttons. But due to a heavy reliance on pre-made, store-bought components, this alternative is not ideal for ECE 445.

### Technical Overview of Functionality

A capacitive touch sensor detects button presses and sends a signal to the connected computer through a microprocessor and USB chip. The connected computer has drivers installed which decodes these signals and performs the user-assigned actions. The USB port of the user’s computer is expected to power the whole circuit.

Master Bus Processor

Clay Kaiser, Philip Macias, Richard Mannion

Master Bus Processor

Featured Project

General Description

We will design a Master Bus Processor (MBP) for music production in home studios. The MBP will use a hybrid analog/digital approach to provide both the desirable non-linearities of analog processing and the flexibility of digital control. Our design will be less costly than other audio bus processors so that it is more accessible to our target market of home studio owners. The MBP will be unique in its low cost as well as in its incorporation of a digital hardware control system. This allows for more flexibility and more intuitive controls when compared to other products on the market.

Design Proposal

Our design would contain a core functionality with scalability in added functionality. It would be designed to fit in a 2U rack mount enclosure with distinct boards for digital and analog circuits to allow for easier unit testings and account for digital/analog interference.

The audio processing signal chain would be composed of analog processing 'blocks’--like steps in the signal chain.

The basic analog blocks we would integrate are:

Compressor/limiter modes

EQ with shelf/bell modes

Saturation with symmetrical/asymmetrical modes

Each block’s multiple modes would be controlled by a digital circuit to allow for intuitive mode selection.

The digital circuit will be responsible for:

Mode selection

Analog block sequence

DSP feedback and monitoring of each analog block (REACH GOAL)

The digital circuit will entail a series of buttons to allow the user to easily select which analog block to control and another button to allow the user to scroll between different modes and presets. Another button will allow the user to control sequence of the analog blocks. An LCD display will be used to give the user feedback of the current state of the system when scrolling and selecting particular modes.

Reach Goals

added DSP functionality such as monitoring of the analog functions

Replace Arduino boards for DSP with custom digital control boards using ATmega328 microcontrollers (same as arduino board)

Rack mounted enclosure/marketable design

System Verification

We will qualify the success of the project by how closely its processing performance matches the design intent. Since audio 'quality’ can be highly subjective, we will rely on objective metrics such as Gain Reduction (GR [dB]), Total Harmonic Distortion (THD [%]), and Noise [V] to qualify the analog processing blocks. The digital controls will be qualified by their ability to actuate the correct analog blocks consistently without causing disruptions to the signal chain or interference. Additionally, the hardware user interface will be qualified by ease of use and intuitiveness.

Project Videos