Sitar Control

A research internship at Centre d'Automatique des Systèmes, Mines ParisTech

by Jeremy Dahan, student at Mines ParisTech and member of the Trublion collective

This website is my report for my research internship at the CAS where I built a stringed musical instrument on which timbre is controled using electromagnets. A complete description can be found here

EDIT : This report was written in 2016, when I was a member of the Trublion collective and a Student of Mines-ParisTech


  1. Introduction
  2. Landscape of augmented instruments
  3. Design choices for the instrument
    1. General geometry
    2. Choosing the actuator
    3. Choosing the sensor
    4. Microcontroller, amplifier and woodworking
    5. Summary of the design
  4. Engineering a magnetic scanner
    1. Design
    2. Results
  5. Controlling the instrument
    1. State-sensor algorithm
    2. Dynamics of the system
    3. Code architecture and first control
    4. Linearising the actuators
  6. Discussion : Compairing with other setups
  7. Conclusion and future work
  8. About this website

General geometry of the instrument

Our stringed instrument is inspired from the lapsteel and the Chinese Guzheng : it has a long, thin body of wood and it is played on a table. It uses two bass strings under which electromagnetic actuators are placed.

The following figure summarizes the shape of the instrument.

Diagram of the shape of the proposed instrument

Diagram of the shape of the proposed instrument

The exact choice of the actuators is detailed in the next section.