Audio Spotlighting

Liji Ramesan Santhi & Sreeja V

Electrical and Electronics Department Engineers have nearly struggled for half a century to produce a speaker design with 20Hz 20000Hz capability of human hearing and also produce a narrow beam of audible sound... The directivity of any wave producing source depends on the size of the source, compared to the wavelength it generates. Inherent properties of the air cause the ultrasound to distort in a predictable way. The distortion gives rise to frequency components in the audio bandwidth, which can be predicted and precisely controlled. By generating the correct ultrasonic signal, we can create, within the air itself, essentially any sound desired. The ultrasound column acts as an airborne speaker, and as the beam moves through the air, gradual distortion takes place in a predictable way. This gives rise to audible components that can be accurately predicted and precisely controlled...

Abstract- In the present world, distortion sound which was annoying to the people in the vicinity, an audio spotlighting system was designed as a solution to one of lifes many challenges. Audio spot lighting is a very recent technology that creates focused beams of sound similar to light beams coming out of a flashlight. By shining sound to one location, specific listeners can be targeted with sound without others nearby hearing it. This acoustic device comprises a speaker that fires inaudible ultrasound pulses with very small wavelength which act in a manner very similar to that of a narrow column. The ultra sound beam acts as an airborne speaker and as the beam moves through the air gradual distortion takes place in a predictable way due to the property of non-linearity of air. This gives rise to audible components that can be accurately predicted and precisely controlled. The targeted or directed audio technology is going to a huge commercial market in entertainment and consumer electronics and technology developers are scrambling to tap in to the market. Being the most recent and dramatic change in the way we perceive sound since the invention of coil loud speaker, audio spot light technology can do many miracles in various fields. In areas where headsets have previously been needed, why not use multiple audio spotlights, so that customers can hear naturally

Loud Speakers Vs Audio Spotlighting

All loudspeakers today have one thing in common: they are direct radiating-- that is, they are fundamentally a piston-like device designed to directly pump air molecules into motion to create the audible sound waves we hear. The audible portions of sound tend to spread out in all directions from the point of origin. They do not travel as narrow beamswhich is why you dont need to be right in front of a radio to hear music. In fact, the beam angle of audible sound is very wide, just about 360 degrees. This effectively means the sound that you hear will be

I. INTRODUCTION

propagated through air equally in all directions. Conventional loudspeakers suffer from amplitude distortions, harmonic distortion, phase distortion, cross over distortion etc. In order to focus sound into a narrow beam, you need to maintain a low beam angle that is dictated by wavelength. The smaller the wavelength, the less the beam angle, and hence, the more focused the sound. To create a narrow sound beam, the aperture size of the source also mattersa large loudspeaker will focus sound over a smaller area. If the source loudspeaker can be made several times bigger than the wavelength of the sound transmitted, then a finely focused beam can be created. The problem here is that this is not a very practical solution. To ensure that the shortest audible wavelengths are focused into a beam, a loudspeaker about 10 meters across is required, and to guarantee that all the audible wavelengths are focused, even bigger loudspeakers are needed, thus the low angle beam can be achieved only by making the wavelength smaller and this can be achieved by making use of ultrasonic sound. Audio spotlight looks like a disc-shaped loudspeaker, trailing a wire, with a small laser guide-beam mounted in the middle. When one points the flat side of the disc in your direction, you hear whatever sound he's chosen to play for you. But when he turns the disc away, the sound fades almost to nothing.

Components :

range of 21 KHz to 28 KHz which is required for modulator of information signals. Modulator In order to convert the source signal material into ultrasonic signal a modulation scheme is The new sound produced virtually has no distortions associated with it and faithful reproduction of sound is freed from bulky enclosures. There are no woofers or crossovers. This technology is such a way that you can direct ultrasonic emitter towards a hard surface a wall for instance and the listener perceives the sound as coming from the spot on the wall. The listener does not perceive the sound as emanating from the face of the transducer, but only from the reflection of wall. For the maximum volume that trade show use demands it is recommended that the audio spotlight speaker more accurately called transducer is mounted no more than three meter from the average listener ears or five meters in the air. The mounting hardware is constructed with a ball joint so that the audio spotlights can easily aimed wherever the sound required which is achieved through a modulator. In addition error correction is needed to reduce distortion without loss of efficiency Audio signal processor: Signal is sent to electronic signal processor circuit where equalization and distortion control are performed in order to produce a good equalization signal. Microcontroller: A dedicated microcontroller circuit takes care of the functional management of the system. In the future version it is expected that the whole process like functional management, signal processing, double side band, modulation and

Advantages
1. Can focus sound only at the place you want. 2. Ultra sonic emitter devices are thin and flat and do not require a mounting cabinet. 3. The focused or directed sound travels much faster in a straight line than conventional loudspeakers. 4. Dispersion can be controlled very narrow or wider to cover more listening area. 5. Reduces the feed back from microphones. 6. Highly cost effective as the maintenance required is less as compared to conventional loudspeakers and have longer lifespan. 7. Require only same power as required for regular speakers. 8. There is no lag in reproducing the sound.

Power Supply: The audio spotlighting system works off dc voltage. Ultrasonic amplifier requires 48V dc supply for its working and low voltage for microcontroller and other process management. Frequency Oscillator: It generates ultrasonic frequency signals in the

Applications

Automobiles: Beam alert signals can be directly propagated from an announcement device in the dashboard to the driver. Presently Mercedes Benz buses are fitted with audio spotlighting speakers so that the individual travelers can enjoy music of their own interest. Retail sales Provide targeted advertisement directly at the point of purchase. Public announcements Highly focused announcements in noisy environments such as subways, air ports, amusement parks, traffic etc Emergency Rescue Rescuers can communicate with endangered people far from reach. Entertainment system In home theater system speakers can be eliminated by the implementation of audio improved.spotlighting and the properties of sound can be In museums this can be used to describe about a particular object to a person standing in front of it, so that the other person standing in front of another object will not be able to hear the description. Audio/video conferencing Project the audio spotlighting from a conference in four different language forms a single central device without the need for headphones. Sound bullets Jack the sound level 50 times the human threshold of pain and an offshoot of audio spotlighting sound technology becomes a non lethal weapon.

ultrasonic for generating audible sound beams- Journal of the Audio Engineering Society 2. P J Westervelt, Parametric Acoustic array-Journal of the Acoustical society of America. 3. The past, present and Future of Audio Signal Processing, IEEE signal Processing Magazine(pages 30-57,sept 1999) 4. www.silentsound.co.za-silent sound. 5. www.techalone.com-Audio Spotlighting 6. www.holosonics.com 7. Electronics for you- volume 40 (January 2008) 8. www.fileguru.com/apps/audio_spotlighting_ ieee paper(2009)

Future
It holds the promise of replacing the conventional speakers. It allows the user to control the direction of propagation of sound. The audio spotlighting will force people to rethink their relationship with sound and it put sound where you want it.

Conclusion
Although the project didnt succeed, there are several issues to be gained. It is really going to make a revolution in sound transmission and the user can decide the path in which audio signal should propagate. It is going to shape the future of sound and will serve our ears with magical experience.

Reference 1. F Joseph Pompei:The use of airborne