Research and development of an automatic violin player

The purpose of this research is to build an automatic violin player. There are two stages of this research. First, we developed the mechanical fingering and bowing skills by studying the structure of a violin. Based on the results, we designed the basic automatic control mechanisms. The second stage of this research is to build the automatic violin player. This automatic player consists of two mechanical systems. The first system is the bowing mechanism, which is able to control the bowing velocity and force. The second system is the violin control mechanism. This system can rotate the violin to a specific angle to coordinate with the string-changing movement of the bow. It also possesses a fingering device, which is able to press on several fixed positions in correspondence with the notes of the music. The automatic violin player utilizes a PC-based controller, and is able to play a song by the sequential commands.