The present invention relates generally to underwater acoustic arrays, and more particularly to lightweight, high frequency transducer arrays suitable for conformal installations.
Electromechanical transducers are devices that exchange electrical and mechanical energy. Such transducers have acoustic applications, such as in microphone, speaker, underwater projector, hydrophone, sonar, sonic cleaning and imaging, and weaponry applications. Transducers intended for sonar applications typically use solid-state piezoelectric elements. These elements may be made from a variety of materials, such as ferroelectric ceramic lead zirconate titanate (PZT).
In sonar applications, a multiplicity of transducers are typically configured in an array. In addition to increased signal gain and reduced interference provided by an array's directivity, operational modes that produce life-like images and yield accurate estimates of contact bearing, range, and velocity are facilitated.
Underwater transducer arrays and associated acoustic signal conditioning baffles have generally been proposed. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 1,378,420, describes a pressure release surface, sonar baffle, inertia plate, and a general manner of arrangement to implement low frequency passive sonar. Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 2,415,832 describes a high frequency transducer array employing a resonant backing absorber that conditions the acoustic signal. These construction techniques are effective, but due to resonance operation, are inherently narrowband.
Methods for reducing mutual coupling between transducers in an array have been applied. As known to those skilled in the art, reduced mutual coupling is beneficial since high inter-element coupling is known to degrade performance of arrays that are electronically steered. An example is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,004,266.
Advances in acoustic baffle materials and construction methods have been used to reduce acoustic signal contamination from platform self-generated noise and to further condition an array's response. Examples include felt or wool loaded panels, decoupling materials like Corprene (Armstrong Company) and Sonite (Thermal Ceramics, Augusta, Ga.), specialty materials like Syntactic Acoustic Damping Material, or SADM, (Syntec Materials Inc., Springfield, Va.) and “Fibermetal”, described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,975,799, screen baffles such as described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,669,573, air-voided composite panels and compliant tube baffles, such as those described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,674,595 and 5,220,535 and finally, active structure baffles, such as those described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,335,209.
The aforementioned transducer arrays and baffle technologies have various advantages and disadvantages. For example, arrays employing air-voided baffles are constrained in operation to relatively shallow depths or suffer reduced performance. Arrays using inertia plates, screen baffles, resonant absorbers, or active structures typically suffer bandwidth constraints due to the construction that are often more restrictive than the limits of the transducer. Further yet, many implementations are heavy, leading to an imbalance when transducer arrays are incorporated in ship's hull applications. Added ballast (or buoyancy) is typically required to offset the transducer array's weight.
In view of the foregoing considerations, the inventors have recognized a need for low cost, conformal, lightweight, acoustic transducer arrays for various sonar applications, such as underwater collision avoidance systems.
Understanding of the present invention will be facilitated by consideration of the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments of the present invention taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which like numerals refer to like parts and in which:
a-2c each illustrate a plan-view of an acoustic energy receiving surface of an acoustic transducer array according to an embodiment of the present invention;
a and 4b illustrate cross-section views of typical arrays;
c and 4d illustrate cross sectional views of arrays according to embodiments of the present invention;
a illustrates radiation pattern characteristics for a conventional single transducer when measured at the array design frequency;
b illustrates radiation pattern characteristics for a transducer according to an embodiment of the invention when measured at the array design frequency;
It is to be understood that the figures and descriptions of the present invention have been simplified to illustrate concepts that are relevant for a clear understanding of the present invention, while eliminating, for purposes of clarity, many other suitably designed components found in typical sonar systems. However, because such pieces are well known in the art, and because they do not facilitate a better understanding of the present invention, a discussion of such is not provided herein. The disclosure herein is directed to all such variations and modifications known to those skilled in the art.
According to an embodiment of the present invention, an acoustic transducer array and method of baffle construction are presented to provide an improved array for use in underwater installations. In certain embodiments of the invention, exposed baffling material is constructed of an acoustically semi-rigid material and represents a majority of the array's cross-sectional area of a receiving surface of an array. For example, in certain embodiments of the present invention, the transducer surface area may represent less than about 20% of the total surface area of the energy receiving surface of the array. Additional baffling material flanking the transducers in the array may be composed of a multiplicity of lightweight layers, including Syntactic foam, for example. Accordingly, small transducers with high mass densities may be employed in a fully functional, fully populated array while still maintaining a total overall light weight. The generally incompressible nature of the transducers and associated baffle permit use over a wide range of depths with minimal degradation in performance over depth. When arrays are employed in such a manner, certain desirable performance characteristics may arise; for example, the transducer geometry and baffle construction improve the radiation pattern characteristics so that the practical angle of acceptance for incident acoustic energy increases from a typical 90 degrees to a more useful 150 degrees or greater. This aspect benefits system performance in that the array will possess a greater potential coverage area. Additionally, such a construction allows for a weight reduction from a typical 5 g/cc density to about 2 g/cc, or less, for embodiments of the invention, reducing installation impact and cost of materials.
While the exact number of transducers used and their relative locations to each other in the array may be a matter of design choice, certain geometrical configurations are particularly advantageous. For example, uniform, linear spacing between transducers allows for the use of relatively simplified signal processing algorithms. Certain embodiments of the present invention enable a substantially periodic spacing to be achieved between sub-panels in large arrays. More specifically, when a multiplicity of fully populated array panels are assembled into a larger array, the transducer size and baffle geometry eliminate any extraneous gap that typically occurs between adjacent array panels, thus lessening signal processing requirements and providing a more uniform acoustic image.
While arrays and baffles according to embodiments of the invention are adaptable to a wide range of transducers, tonpilz longitudinal resonant type transducers may be particularly well suited for use. Tonpilz type transducers are well-understood, and have a directional nature well-suited for hull mounted array panel use. They can also be made simply and inexpensively, and can be shock-hardened more easily than other types of transducers. Certain embodiments of the invention are directed towards a lightweight high frequency array employing tonpilz transducers.
Referring now to
In a two dimensional array, such as depicted in
Referring now to
Referring now to
where Stransducer is the diameter of each transducer element 30), and the center-to-center distance S2 and/or S3 between adjacent transducer elements of different arrays 10 (e.g., 31 and 32, and 31, 33) are greater than distance S1, which is typically chosen dependent upon a desired operating characteristic, for example, a distance of one-half wavelength.
Accordingly, transducer elements 10 may not be seen to be periodically spaced over array 700—leading to undesirable lobing or striping in the display image during operation of array 700, as is conventionally understood.
Referring now to
Referring now also to
where gap is ½ of the spacing between adjacent arrays 100. It should be understood that this is not achieved in array 700 of
where Stransducer is the diameter of each transducer element 30. Thus, array 800 may be seen to mitigate lobing and striping inherent to array 700.
Referring again to
Referring now to
Construction of an array may include mounting an acoustically absorbent substrate 506 to signal conditioning and mounting plate 507, followed by installation of transducers 504 or 505. Suitable signal conditioning plates are made from structural materials possessing good strength and high acoustic impedance for example, steel. The mounting and signal conditioning plate may be affixed directly to a vessel's hull, to suitable vibration isolators and associated sonar baffling, or to a housing containing transducer electronics, for example. The acoustically absorbent substrate may be made from a variety of materials; one example being SADM. Such a material serves to isolate the transducers from noise generated by the vessel on which they are installed.
Disposed over transducers 504, 505 may be a cover 508 for water blocking, impedance matching, and/or encapsulation purposes. Cover 508 may be formed of a material such as (but not limited to) polyeurathane, a rubber such as neoprene rubber, butyl rubber, or fiberglass, for example. An acoustically transparent window 509 may then be installed for separation of the transducer from a turbulent boundary layer as is understood by one of ordinary skill in the art. Such window 509 may be formed of a thin layer of steel, fiberglass, rubber or composite material such as an elastomer, all by way of example only. Such a window has been shown to improve array performance by reducing flow noise reaching the transducer, as has been discussed in Ko and Schloemer, JASA, April 1989.
c-4d illustrate embodiments of the present invention, where a reduction in array weight and improved in acoustic performance may be achieved. For example, the heavy signal conditioning plate 507 is replaced by a lightweight composite isolator 510, such as a Corprene-Aluminum sandwich. The relatively dense absorbent substrate 506 is replaced by a lightweight composite comprising a layer of incompressible, acoustically transparent material 511, such as syntactic foam and a thin layer of semi-absorbent capping material 512. To minimize the acoustic impact of the syntactic foam layer 511 and to maintain its acoustic transparency, it may be kept thin, as is discussed in Madigosky and Fiorito, JASA May 1979, in which the maximum thickness for a given operational frequency can be calculated. The material 512 capping the syntactic foam forms a semi-rigid baffle condition for the transducers in the array. If material 512 realizes an acoustically rigid baffle condition, incident acoustic energy impinging on the baffle may cause a reflected wave to be generated that is in phase with the incident wave at the surface, such that a gain in sensitivity may be realized. The gain in sensitivity is achieved usually at the cost of a non-uniform acoustic pressure distribution across the face of the array, thus resulting in generally degraded uniform and wide bandwidth array response. Also, as a fully rigid baffle, transverse acoustic waves can propagate within the rigid layers of the baffle and generate interference that is spatially correlated across the array, further hampering performance.
On the other hand, if material 512 capping the syntactic foam is chosen as a highly absorptive material, such as the case of applying a layer of pressure release material like Corprene, the incident acoustic wave is sufficiently attenuated such that the effective transducer output is severely diminished. The application of SADM for the material 512 is advantageous because it is not fully rigid nor is it highly absorbent. In addition, it has a non-uniform, nearly random structure that disrupts the periodicity of deleterious transverse waves. Benefits of this unique baffle configuration can be further understood by examining the measured acoustic responses shown in
a illustrates a radiation pattern for a single transducer obtained from the prior art transducer array of
Further improvements may be obtained by replacing matching layer 508 with a thin encapsulation-only layer 513, thus reducing volume and weight. Encapsulation-only layer 513 may be composed of a waterproofing material such as molded polyeurathane, by way of example only. The window layer 514 may be essentially unchanged in the embodiments of the present invention shown in
Referring now also to
For example, a close positional tolerance can be maintained during array assembly. The smaller fractional size of the transducer ensures that its acoustic phase center is more likely to be positioned at the theoretical location. Better alignment improves system signal to noise ratio and detection capability when conventional array processing techniques are employed. High sensitivity transducers and low noise signal conditioning ensures that resultant channel noise levels are below ambient levels.
It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that modifications and variations may be made in the apparatus and process of the present invention without departing from the spirit or scope of the invention. It is intended that the present invention cover the modification and variations of this invention provided they come within the scope of the appended claims and their equivalents.