"Pneumatically Activated Soft Material Biomimicry of Human Vocal Folds"
Rutgers University School of Engineering Senior Design Project for the Class of 2013.
The initial goal of this project was to replicate biological sound projection by means of soft robotics. Soft robotics is a rising technology that takes advantage of the unique properties of elastomers. With this in mind, our team adopted a biomimetic design of the human vocal folds. This required extensive research into several topics, including acoustics, biology, simulation, and programming.
The robot's final design used two membranes arranged across a pressurized air supply which, when released, led to an excitation of the membranes that produced sound. The flow rate and the tension of the membranes were adjusted to allow for various response frequencies and thus varying pitch, much like the human larynx. The servos and solenoids responsible for these adjustments were controlled by means of a programmed micro-controller.
