The project is looking to create a stationary, expandable system of microphones
that can pinpoint and amplify specific positions within a given space. Kyle Gruen and his team in the GreyUR undergraduate research program are hoping their system can be used in classrooms, theaters, and other places that use traditional microphone equipment.
Phased Array Microphonics is basically built on this idea of creating a stationary microphone system. That can use technologies found in sonar and radar in order to amplify specific positions within a given room. So, if I’m a professor and I want to project my voice out to a classroom, I’ll need a microphone to accomplish that, but with the phase array system, I won’t need this at all. Eventually, we kind of are wanting to basically implement this project into classrooms or lecture halls, performance halls, in order to increase the amount of accessibility options. Last semester was centrally focused on the feasibility of the idea. And once we had actually tested our algorithm on synthetic audio waves, we were able then this semester to go into the process of actually creating the whole entire system “This is recording session one, test one.” Once the fidelity is high enough, it can essentially replace microphones everywhere. I’m a junior electrical engineer, so my main part of the project has been more focused on the hardware side, revamping the hardware prototype, as well as doing research for the future to make the system way more scalable, add more microphones. “All right play it.. recording in 3..2..1.” What’s really great about our project is that we have such a wide range of disciplines that we’re pulling from. We have electrical engineers, we have CMDA students, computer science students. It’s been really fun to see what other students are capable of in other fields, especially on the computer science aspect. Just analyzing what we currently have and using it to optimize our design, seeing where the flaws are, as well as just adding useful features such as the database that tracks all of our recordings. It’s really just shown me how amazing it is to see so many different people come together and what can come from that. And I think the semester, I mean, we’re just winning, you know? It’s just one win after another. Like, I don’t know how else to put it. You know, we still have challenges. There’s still things with, you know, people still learning people, still taking that time to develop it, the team itself, we’re all just so motivated to get there.
