Georgia Tech PhD Student Creates a Robotic Violinist That Uses AI to Play South Indian Carnatic Music

Raghavasimhan Sankaranarayanan, a PhD student at Georgia Tech College of Design, has created Hathaani, an incredible robotic violinist with an accompanying synthesizer that uses machine learning to understand, play, and even improvise in the South Indian style of Karnataka Sangita (Carnatic Music)

Hathaani is a novel robotic violinist that is designed to play Carnatic music – a music system popular in the southern part of India. The robot plays the D string and uses a single finger mechanism inspired by the Chitravina – a fretless Indian lute. A fingerboard traversal system with a dynamic finger tip apparatus enables the robot to play gamakas – pitch based embellishments in-between notes, which are at the core of Carnatic music.

Sankaranarayanan Explains His Amazing Invention