Plasma Speaker

Analog
Project Management
FPGA
Enclosure
Hardware
Consumer Product

The Plasma Speaker project aims to provide a more diverse and inspirational listening experience for our end users. A plasma speaker also has no resonance or transient problems, thus an improvement over conventional solid diaphragm speakers. Our system functions by creating plasma between two electrodes and modulating alternating electrical current passing through the plasma so that the ionized air responds to the produced magnetic field. The resulting movement of ionized particles interacting with the surrounding air creates sound waves. We do this by using an FPGA for signal modulation and high power MOSFETS and a transformer to step up the voltage. Air has a high resistance, thus providing a large enough voltage and current to bridge the gap was a challenge. To accommodate this, our team designed a helium chamber that reduced the resistivity between the two electrodes. Another notable challenge was designing a switching circuit that could handle the high voltage, current, and switching speeds. Our current design has two MOSFETS in parallel, and while this layout works, they got hot very quickly. If given more time, the best solution for switching the high-power signal would be an H-bridge circuit powered by dedicated gate drivers.

4 Lifts 

Awards

Artifacts

Name Description
Executive Summary Project Overview   Download
Project Document Full description of the project   Download
Project Overview Video A short video describing our project.   Link