Audification And Sonification Of Power Grid Data ECE 498 Pat Cowden Advisor: Professor Dosiek

Background Power Grid Frequency is at 60 Hz but constantly fluctuates by values of a few mHz Voltage Magnitude constantly changes do to applied loads across the Grid V(t) = √2 A(t)cos(2πfct + θ(t))

Project Discription Data will be processed from historic U.S. geographical data as well as data captured from Power Systems Lab Project will be fully written in MATLAB Audification will generate audio sample representing the power grid voltage over measured time period Sonification will generate a MIDI file mapping the voltage magnitude and frequency fluctuations over measured time period

Power Grid Station Voltage

Audification Approach

Voltage Magnitude Plot

Frequency Plot

Sonification Approach Data processed and Frequency and Voltage magnitude MIDI parameters are generated Frequency deviations controls pitch values Four Octave Range of Pitch Values Voltage magnitude controls velocity values Using existing MIDI file generator script, MIDI parameters will generate a MIDI file which will be played through a virtual audio synthesizer

Potential Difficulties Dissonance in successive sonified notes Identifying appropriate subset size for both techniques Generating complex non pure tone sounds for Audification approach Processing other signal parameters

Project Importance Power Grid Education for students and general public Power Grid Signal Processing Research Power grid station analysis to examine forced grid oscillations

Project Support “All sonifications, however, may have musical effects on listeners, as our trained ears with daily exposure to music tend to naturally distinguish musical and non-musical sound relationships, such as harmony, rhythmic stability, or timbral balance” -Jason Freeman, and Lee W. Lerner, Tsuchiya, Takahiko. ”Data-To-Music API: Real- Time Data-Agnostic Sonification With Musical Structure Models.” The 21st International Conference On Auditory Display (2015) : 244-51. July 2015. Web. 24 Oct. 2016.

Similar Work Network Metadata Sonification Seismograph Audification Pitch and time used to represent the data flow rate Seismograph Audification https://soundcloud.com/seismicsounds/christchur ch-earthquake

Questions?

References Dosiek, Luke. "Extracting Electrical Network Frequency From Digital Recordings Using Frequency Demodulation." IEEE Signal Processing Letters 22.6 (2015): 691-95. IEEE Xplore. Web. 22 Sept. 2016. Freeman, Jason, Lerner, Lee W., Tsuchiya, Takahiko. ”Data-To-Music API: Real-Time Data-Agnostic Sonification With Musical Structure Models.” The 21st International Conference On Auditory Display (2015) : 244- 51. July 2015. Web. 24 Oct. 2016. McGee, Ryan, Andy Michael, Stock Plum, and D. Rogers V. "Sounds of Seismic – Earth System Soundscape.” Web. 22 Sept. 2016. Worrall, David. "Real-Time Sonification and Visualization of Network Metadata." The 21st International Conference On Auditory Display (2015): 337-39. July 2015. Web. 24 Oct. 2016.