So the obstacles that we've been encountering with the Arduino and the interleaving/mixing of the audio tracks may be solved, but as with any real-world project there are time constraints and the clock's ticking is getting louder. All of the devices should be up and running within 2 weeks' time.
So, we're ditching the audio shield due to it's slow speed and the real time digital mixing, for now. Instead, we'll be working with the high speed processing of the ISD4002 ChipCorder(R) that works with real time audio for playback and recording. The beauty of the device is that:
Ideally, we'd just use one microcontroller to program the sound chip, calibrate the sensors, and control the active system, but due to the lack of time, we'll use one microcontroller, the PIC16F84A (one of my personal favorites) for the programming of the sound chips. The calibration and control of the whole system may be done through the Arduino, so long as we have available 4 inputs (2 for sensors and 2 for the sound chips) and 2 outputs (for triggering the sound chips). The Arduino has numerous multipurpose pins, so that's definitely not an issue. The calibration of the sensors can be done externally with a rheostat or internally with the use of an additional analog input pin.
The main thing is that the mixing of the two audio sounds will be done by a LM386 set up as a summer or with a splitter/combiner.
The first prototype should be set up on a breadboard just to show feasibility. After that, we may decide to create custom soldered boards, but I think sticking to breadboards for now would lead to very quick and efficient production. If we want to beautify it, we can always place the boards inside a project box.
There was talk about having the boards communicate with each other, but we'll leave that for later, if there's time for it.
So, we're ditching the audio shield due to it's slow speed and the real time digital mixing, for now. Instead, we'll be working with the high speed processing of the ISD4002 ChipCorder(R) that works with real time audio for playback and recording. The beauty of the device is that:
- It has built-in anti-aliasing and smoothing filters.
- A four-wire SPI interface.
- The family offers a variety of storage space and sampling rates.
- Most importantly, there is a circuit for directly uploading a WAV file onto the chip. Though it's programmed through a serial port, there are USB-to-serial adapters available.
Ideally, we'd just use one microcontroller to program the sound chip, calibrate the sensors, and control the active system, but due to the lack of time, we'll use one microcontroller, the PIC16F84A (one of my personal favorites) for the programming of the sound chips. The calibration and control of the whole system may be done through the Arduino, so long as we have available 4 inputs (2 for sensors and 2 for the sound chips) and 2 outputs (for triggering the sound chips). The Arduino has numerous multipurpose pins, so that's definitely not an issue. The calibration of the sensors can be done externally with a rheostat or internally with the use of an additional analog input pin.The main thing is that the mixing of the two audio sounds will be done by a LM386 set up as a summer or with a splitter/combiner.
The first prototype should be set up on a breadboard just to show feasibility. After that, we may decide to create custom soldered boards, but I think sticking to breadboards for now would lead to very quick and efficient production. If we want to beautify it, we can always place the boards inside a project box.
There was talk about having the boards communicate with each other, but we'll leave that for later, if there's time for it.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for your feedback.