SUMMARY OF THE DEGREE PROJECT

LASER BASED LONG DISTANCE VOICE TRACKING SYSTEM

(For the Master Programme UU-P1323)

The emerging new electronic revolution has set the stage for men to master the field of
electronics. This is evident in the new era of Embedded Systems, Wireless communication
techniques like Bluetooth, CDMA and advanced Digital Signal Processing concepts like
speech recognition. As a budding engineer, I have tried to give a novel dimension to this field
and have successfully devised “Long range voice tracking system using laser” as my final
year project.

The 16 week project was intended to provide the Defense system and the intelligence
department with a gadget that would help them for spying from long distances and
circumvent many disasters or help them during unexpected terror attacks like 26/11 Mumbai
attack.

DOPPLER SHIFT PRINCIPLE:

Light from a moving object tends to have a phase shift. This phase shift is towards the Violet
spectrum when the object of light emission or the object of reflection comes close at a
specific rate. Shift is towards the Red spectrum when the object moves away from the viewer.
This is the principle of Doppler shift. By projecting a Red LASER on to a surface far away,
which is going to vibrate as per the received sound vibrations, there will be a change in the
amount of light reflected with respect to the vibrations produced by the surface. When we
apply Doppler shift to a reflected Infra Red LASER from this vibrating reflective surface, we
get varying wavelength of light at a rate corresponding to the rate of oscillation. By detecting
the rate of change of reflectivity with reference to the Doppler shift, it is possible for us to
process electronically this information into binary signals.

Initially I started the project by working on the transmitter section. Pic18F4220

Microcontroller was used in the transmitter section, which is a 40 pin IC. The positive
voltage of 5 volts was given to the vcc pin of the microcontroller. Port c was connected to the
base of the transistor BC547. The o/p of the transistor, the collector, was connected to the
PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) module, also called as the current regulator, which is useful
in reducing the noise and maintaining the same intensity for all the pulses that are
transmitted. The modulation lines from the PWM module were connected to the laser module
to modulate it at a frequency of 300 kHz. This is similar to the carrier frequency for the
transmitted laser. The laser has to be encoded with a specific PWM frequency for finding the
variations in Doppler shift. Therefore, in this case, I selected a PWM frequency of 300 kHz
and the diode laser was pulsed using FET transistors at this frequency. The positive voltage
for the microcontroller and the laser was given from a 9-volt battery.

Then I proceeded to the receiver section, which consists of the radar module, PIC16F477A
Microcontroller and a DAC (Digital to Analog converter).The radar Module was used for
receiving the reflected laser light and for converting the variations in the reflected light to
binary stream.

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 SUMMARY OF THE DEGREE PROJECT

LASER BASED LONG DISTANCE VOICE TRACKING SYSTEM

(For the Master Programme UU-P1323)

According to the properties of waves, there is a frequency component and an amplitude
component. When we take this for a digital processing, we have to separate these two
components or else we will have only the frequency component and the amplitude will be a
constant, which will result in squeaking sound and no proper or clear audio. This is the reason
why we have to separate the amplitude component.

The radar receiver module had four pins out of which first pin was fed a negative voltage
input. Second pin was fed a positive input. The third pin streams a binary output in the digital
mode. This binary stream was given in accordance to the variations in the wavelength of the
reflected laser, which was nothing but the Doppler shift principle. This stream binary input
was fed into the microcontroller PIC16F477A and it determined the frequency of the voice
received. The fourth pin gave the change in analog voltage (intensity of the light) received
from the reflecting surface. These changes in analog voltage were given to the
microcontroller ADC for processing. This determined the amplitude of the signal, which was
received. This corresponds to the amplitude of the sound. Therefore, we have two signals viz.
amplitude and frequency of sound in digital format. These two signals were given to a DAC
for converting it into analog sound and hence we were able to abstract sound from a long
distance using laser.

When people speak, it sets up vibrations on the near by materials. The Doppler shift in the
PWM encoded LASER beam reflected from such a vibrating reflecting surface was
detected and was proportional to the characteristics of the sound. The voice clarity obtained
by using the prototype was reasonably good even from a range of several hundreds of meter.

As we know, Defense is always better than open warfare. The earlier system of electronic
spying systems is microphone based. Though the microphone based spying is sensitive to
even a pin drop at a very short range, for long-range usage, it is not viable . Here I have
designed a long-range laser spying system, which does not use any kind of microphone or
radio frequency reception. Indeed, this kind of a system will not even require any material to
be implanted in secret locations. This system would be enabling us to listen to any kind of
sound produced several kilometers away from the target point. Such a device would be
helpful to save innumerable hostages in future.

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 SUMMARY OF THE DEGREE PROJECT

LASER BASED LONG DISTANCE VOICE TRACKING SYSTEM

(For the Master Programme UU-P1323)

EMBEDDED SYSTEMS

At present, embedded systems and processors have definitely become a part and
parcel of our life. Each day we are exposed to 20 microprocessors on an average, and most of
these microprocessors are incorporated in embedded systems. An embedded system is a
special-purpose computer built integrated into a device. The embedded system could range
from a single microprocessor to a complex System-on-a-Chip system. Embedded systems
usually have a processor and memory hierarchy. In addition to that, there are a variety of
interfaces that enable the system to measure, manipulate, and interact with the external
environment. The human interface may be as simple as a flashing light or as complicated as
real-time robotic vision. Embedded system usually provides functionality specific to its
application. Its software often has a fixed function, which is specific to the application.
Instead of executing spreadsheet, word processing and engineering analysis applications,
embedded systems typically execute control flows, finite state machines, and signal
processing algorithms. They must often detect and react to faults in both the computing and
surrounding electromechanical systems, and must manipulate application-specific user
interface devices.

LASER VIBROMETRY

The main principle of my project is laser vibrometry. For the communication from the
aerial platform with the autonomous underwater vehicles, a laser Doppler vibrometer is under
development. The detection of the laser Doppler shift of the sea surface vibrating is
implemented. The sound-pressure level of 150.8 dB is obtained under the acoustic signal of 7
kHz. This principle is put into use in spying as well. When we speak, we set the surrounding
objects to vibrations with our sound waves. Thus by reflecting laser from glass windows or
any other reflecting surface we can easily hear what the people nearby are talking or plotting
to without the use of any microphones from a long distance .

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 SUMMARY OF THE DEGREE PROJECT

LASER BASED LONG DISTANCE VOICE TRACKING SYSTEM

(For the Master Programme UU-P1323)

ADVANTAGES
1. Using the targets own reflective properties
2. Suitable to distinguish between black and white
3. Relatively large active distance
4. Easy mounting (only one sensor)

ADVANTAGES
1. Low cost.
2. High reliability.
3. High torque at low speeds and simple.
4. Rugged construction that operates in almost any environment.
9.7 DISADVANTAGES
1. By using a step motor is the resonance effect often exhibited at low
speeds and decreasing torque with increasing speed.