An Effective Design and Construction of Robotic musical instrument Using PIC Microcontrollers

Abstract

An automated musical instrument is a device which generates sounds using mechanical actuators, electronics and control process rather than conventional human involvement. The main problem in developing such a device can be listed as the initial cost required for the relevant music instrument and actuators, undesired damages caused to the instrument during designing process, the size of the device and the mechanism adapted to store data and codes of long programs which represents a song or a music. This paper investigates the concept of design and construction of an effective robotic musical instrument whose operations are governed by PIC microcontrollers to overcome the above mentioned problems. The construction is implemented over an electric guitar using a set of unique actuators along with analogue electronics. The actuators used to pick the strings and hold the chords are designed using discarded transformers and metal strips obtained from construction toys. The actuators are controlled with appropriate timing via the microcontroller to generate the pre-programmed music. Besides, the entire device was portable in the original guitar cover itself. What?s more, the power supplied to the device is 20 V DC. Moreover, the performance of the device in generating good music was remarkable.