IPRO 315: Improving the User Experience with Mobile Devices and Intercoms:
Optimizing Audio Quality and Energy Efficiency

What is new in IPRO 315?
The iFideliity team was revived this semester and set out continue the work that IPRO 344 started. This semester the iFideliity team developed Wireless and Voiceless Systems to improve on previous semesters' work. Instead of a wired connection from the kiosk to the box, the iFideliity team developed a wireless system that dismisses the use of wires and improves audo quality. In addition, the iFideliity team also created a voiceless system which allows customers to place orders on a mobile device, such as an iPad.

What is IPRO 315?
We are the iFideliity team! Supported by the Illinois Institue of Technology, IPRO 315 seeks to improve the sound quality of existing drive-thru intercoms. What began as an exploration into Class D audio amplifiers has paved the way for a new and vastly improved intercom system to be utilized in existing drive-thru scenarios. Class D amplifiers offer a low-power, high efficiency solution for audio amplification. This semester we hope to provide a segway into more development by testing and rebuilding the circuits and kiosk.


What are Class D amplifiers?
Class D audio amplifiers are highly efficient due to their rapidly switching states. At any given moment, a class D amplifier is switched either fully on or fully off. In these states, the amplifier does not drain energy from the source. Energy is used only during the transition periods, thus reducing the total power consumption. This has allowed high power amplifiers to be constructed without the need for a heat sink as well as reduced size. IPRO 315 first began investigating the use of Class D amplifiers in the Fall of 2007. They are desirable to be used within our improved intercom system because they produce excellent sound quality, are low-cost, and energy efficient. Lower power consumption is the goal of most modern electronic devices as well as being friendly to the environment.