Audification and Sonification of Power Grid Data

In the power grid, the dynamics of the system are constantly fluctuating. These fluctuations/changes of the system are referred to as the response of the power system. For this project, focus on voltage magnitude and frequency fluctuation was taken. There are currently no applications for analyzing these system responses as audio signals. The main objective of this project was to develop algorithms for processing and conversion of power grid data into audio signals. The goal of this project was to determine the usefulness of audio representation for power system response analysis. Two approaches were taken for this method. A sonification approach was taken to convert the data into MIDI notes that are played back through an audio synthesizer.  The voltage of the power system data controls the volume of the MIDI note and the frequency controls the pitch. An audification approach was also taken that processed the sinusoidal power system voltage data and directly converted the signal into an audible signal. The sonification approach was completed through algorithms written in python while the process of audification was written in MATLAB. To finish the project a survey was conducted with Union professors and students. The results of this survey revealed that the audio generated from audification gave clear representation of system responses for listeners. The survey also revealed sonification was able to generate music that was pleasing to the listener.