My favourite type of project to work on, very specific, niche and a bit strange. This is a custom 4-axis CNC motion platform I put designed and put together for Audioscenic (UK). I The head is a special type of microphone which mimics how the human head distorts sound.
Audioscenic developed Amphi, their spatial audio system which large electronics manufactures (including Dell, Acer and Razor) incorporate into everyday devices, like laptops, soundbars, and monitors to create a 3D soundfield without rear speakers or headphones.
They use a custom AI position sensing system to track the listener then use advanced audio techniques like beam-forming and cross-talk cancellation to create an immersive 3D sound-field which surrounds the listener. Audioscenic use the test platform so improving their technologies.
The project drew on 10+ years of expertise in motion platform design, signal processing and robotics for research applications and was completed in a few weeks.
The system provides 4D placement of the microphones to fractions of a mm in all 3 translation axis and a rotational axis for head orientation. The laser guides help to position to the experiment. I put together a Python API to control the hardware to make it easy and fast for Audioscenic’s development team.
Checkout their website for more details about their technologies
I designed a platform to precisely position measurement microphones mounted in a dummy head in all linear axis (X, Y & Z) and an angle axis for turning the head.
Many thanks to Markis and Audioscenic Ltd, Southampton for letting me use your images in this post.