FFT-based melody detection and a micromechanical mass sensor for biofluidic applications

A trained human ear can extract a large variety of information of received sound waves. While the computer-aided detection of speech or human voices has been achieved in a number of works, there was no concept to detecting musical information until about 8 years ago. Using a simple FFT-based approach, it could be shown that the pitch of a monophonic audio signal can be detected and converted into a musical score with reasonable accuracy.

A micromechanical mass sensor for biofluidic applications

The potential of mechanical oscillators (AFM-type cantilevers or quartz crystals) of microscopic scale for detection of small mass changes has been demonstrated in a large number of applications. However, their use in liquids was mostly hindered due to strong viscous damping. To overcome this limitation, a new columnar sensor is proposed that resembles a cantilever probe in shear force mode.