AN EMBEDDED SINE-SWEEP MEASUREMENT SYSTEM FOR ACOUSTIC MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS ANALYSIS BASED ON MICROCONTROLLER AND BLUETOOTH INTERFACE

This thesis presents the work carried out by the author during his master’s degree curricular internship at the School of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering of the University of Portsmouth, United Kingdom. The project focused on the design of a microcontroller-based embedded system for measuring the frequency response of acoustic musical instruments using the Exponential Sine Sweep (ESS) technique developed by Prof. Angelo Farina. The device is conceived as a stand-alone device for the dynamic frequency-domain characterization of resonant mechanical systems, with reference to the vibro-acoustic structures of musical instruments such as soundboards. The main objective of the work was to design a compact and autonomous device capable of replacing the conventional measurement setup currently used for these tests, which typically requires the combined use of multiple laboratory instruments and dedicated software tools. By integrating signal generation, response acquisition, and data processing functionalities within a single embedded platform, the proposed solution aims to simplify the experimental procedure while improving system portability and usability. During this work, the complete system was designed at architectural, hardware, and firmware levels. However, the experimental implementation focused on the exponential sine sweep signal generation stage and on the Bluetooth communication subsystem, which enables interaction with a dedicated smartphone application for device control and monitoring. The output signal generation chain was experimentally validated according to reference criteria, demonstrating performance comparable to that of the reference system. The remaining functionalities were defined at the design level and represent the basis for future developments toward a fully integrated portable measurement instrument.