TY - GEN
T1 - Mechatronics-driven musical expressivity for robotic percussionists
AU - Yang, Ning
AU - Savery, Richard
AU - Sankaranarayanan, Raghavasimhan
AU - Zahray, Lisa
AU - Weinberg, Gil
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, Steering Committee of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression. All rights reserved.
PY - 2020
Y1 - 2020
N2 - Musical expressivity is an important aspect of musical performance for humans as well as robotic musicians. We present a novel mechatronics-driven implementation of Brushless Direct Current (BLDC) motors in a robotic marimba player, named Shimon, designed to improve speed, dynamic range (loudness), and ultimately perceived musical expressivity in comparison to state-of-the-art robotic percussionist actuators. In an objective test of dynamic range, we find that our implementation provides wider and more consistent dynamic range response in comparison with solenoid-based robotic percussionists. Our implementation also outperforms both solenoid and human marimba players in striking speed. In a subjective listening test measuring musical expressivity, our system performs significantly better than a solenoid-based system and is statistically indistinguishable from human performers.
AB - Musical expressivity is an important aspect of musical performance for humans as well as robotic musicians. We present a novel mechatronics-driven implementation of Brushless Direct Current (BLDC) motors in a robotic marimba player, named Shimon, designed to improve speed, dynamic range (loudness), and ultimately perceived musical expressivity in comparison to state-of-the-art robotic percussionist actuators. In an objective test of dynamic range, we find that our implementation provides wider and more consistent dynamic range response in comparison with solenoid-based robotic percussionists. Our implementation also outperforms both solenoid and human marimba players in striking speed. In a subjective listening test measuring musical expressivity, our system performs significantly better than a solenoid-based system and is statistically indistinguishable from human performers.
KW - Mechatronics
KW - Musical Expressivity
KW - Robotics
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85125507198
UR - https://zenodo.org/communities/nime_conference/records?q=&l=list&p=1&s=10&sort=newest
UR - https://nime2025.org/
U2 - 10.5281/zenodo.4813274
DO - 10.5281/zenodo.4813274
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85125507198
T3 - Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression
SP - 133
EP - 138
BT - Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression
A2 - Martin, Charles
A2 - Van Gelder, Pia
A2 - Buse Cavdir, Doga
A2 - Berthaut, Florent
A2 - Wang, Yichen
A2 - Rose, Sophie
A2 - Mulder, Jose
A2 - Carroll, Nicole
PB - International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME)
T2 - 20th International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression, NIME 2020
Y2 - 21 July 2020 through 25 July 2020
ER -