Asked

Moving Head Sound Detector

How do I get my sound detectors to give constant voltage readings on the ADC Graph?  I am using the two detectors to see where the loudest signal came from then move the robot's head toward the loudest.

I have read all I can find on Synthiam including the Community and Tutorials but can not see anything that will solve my problem.

The problem is I can't get a consistent signal from in the ADC Graph.  The line graph will jump up and down even with the a constant audio signal coming from my sound generator.  Since their is no sound consistency I can't write script to make the head move.

Is my problem having to do with the wrong sound detectors or the way the information is handled by the Ez-Robot program?


Related Hardware EZ-B IoTiny
Related Controls ADC Graph ADC Value ADC Meter

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Synthiam
#1  

Do your sensors require a pull-up or pull-down?

#2   — Edited

The sensors have both analog and digital.  I am using analog pin.  As I understand , analog provides a constant streaming variable voltage output.

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Synthiam
#3  

Is there a gain on the audio sensor? Perhaps the gain is super high and picking up distortion? ADC will display what ever voltage it samples - garbage in is garbage out:D

#4   — Edited

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The above pictures are Top ADC Graph,  Next Sound Generator pictures.

Yes there is a gain control on both brands of sound sensors. I have tried from low to high on both of them to no avail.  I added a 1000 ohm resister between signal and ground as per the tutorial instructions when I first built the system.  I am beginning to wonder if this pull down resistor is only used when you are using the digital pin which I don't.  I am going to try removing it and see if that changes things.

It is showing a signal when my Lab dog barks and sometimes when I make a loud voice sound at a higher pitch.  It seems to prefer the higher frequencies.  When I turn on my sound generator and run it at 5000 Hz the generator puts out a perfect sign signal tone.   But on my ADC graph it shows a variable up and down signal.  Again I want to have all three sound sensors in sync so I can write script to to calculate which is louder.  I would like it to act like my Amazon Echo which with led's show where the sound is coming from.  If I could use an Echo far field microphone setup I would. Right now I am trying to build my own.

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USA
#5  

Quote:

I would like it to act like my Amazon Echo which with led's show where the sound is coming from.
Sound localization, is a low level feature is not a job for a high level tool like ARC. You need to code the algorithm at the firmware level, there are some microphone arrays for integration: https://www.matrix.one/products/voice https://www.seeedstudio.com/ReSpeaker-Mic-Array-v2-0.html both products are open for integration and both require Linux and low level tools.

#6  

Thanks PTP.  Coding firmware is way beyond my skill level.  I would love to use one of the arrays but do not know how to interface them with ARC so I can control a head rotate servo. Do you know anyone that has used a microphone array with ARC in this kind of situation.

I have seen someone on the Community make a robot answer which ear is hearing the loudest voice with sound sensors and it seems to work.  I realize that that may not be exactly the same but if it can decide which ear is hearing it should be able to tell a servo to move in the direction of the loudest sound sensor.

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Synthiam
#7   — Edited

Ptp, he’s merely trying to identify the direction of a sound. It should be straight forward with that sensor and adc though.

im wondering if a filtering cap would be useful. I have a sound sensor at the office. I’ll take a look at it this week and see if I can lend some advice

I believe others who determined the direction of sound may have used the sound movement control: https://synthiam.com/Products/Controls/Scripting/Sound-Movement-16110

#8  

Thanks DJ.  I also think i can do it with sound sensors.  I think I can write the code once I get the voltages outputs from the three sound servo's.  I am using a Lol Tiny for testing since it has only two ADC0 and ADC1.  I will use the EZ-B microprocessor for the three sound servo's.