Designing an Internet of Sounds Sonification System with FM Synthesis Techniques

Sonification, the representation of data with sound to communicate information about the original data source, has the potential to become an important technique for the emerging Internet of Sounds (IoS) research field. This article describes the design of a sonification system for sonification-enabled IoS networks in Smart Cities. It uses FM Synthesis techniques to map data from Smart City sensors to acoustic parameters. After a brief introduction considering topics in IoS and sonification, a formal definition of sonification for the IoS is introduced. The advantages of FM synthesis are explored before a discussion of psychoacoustic constraints specific to this approach. Three data sets for which the application was developed are introduced before design considerations are described apropos of each stage of the sonification process. The article closes with a brief discussion of the design and its implications for IoS research.