Robotic Methods in Acoustics: Analysis and Fabrication Processes of Sound Scattering Acoustic Panels

This research explores the design, fabrication and testing of acoustic panels in the context of architectural acoustics. A method of fabricating curved acoustic panels with locally diffusive geometry will be presented. A novel method of testing the sound distribution of a panel in 3-dimensions will also be presented, which uses a robotic arm to position a microphone along a hemispherical toolpath. My aim is to present a theoretical process by which one could start to correlate geometry and sound scattering in a multi-dimensional design space, and how this might fit into the context of architectural project, as shown in Figure 1.