Ultrasonic Localized Sound Projection for a Less Obtrusive Morning Alarm

Timeline

Status: Active

Description

Current parametric speakers are expensive and rarely used in non-commercial small-scale applications. However, their ability to project sound to localized areas could prove highly valuable in co-living situations where user-specific alarms could target people individually.

Using an array of ultrasonic transducers, alarm sounds could be encoded in non-human-perceptible waves that demodulate on impact with a target surface. In the case of college roommates, a proof-of-concept Directional Alarm Clock would project a time-accurate alarm sound to a specific area where its user would receive a much more audible sound than any other room inhabitants.

In future work, a more sophisticated system using two arrays of transducers could project imperceptible waves that interfere to create audible sound, reducing the issues associated with surface collision demodulated waves projecting from where they demodulate.

Team

Members

Alex Boniske