Low-cost, high-power mechanical impact transducers for sonar and acoustic through-wall surveillance applications

Abstract

A new concept is presented for mechanical acoustic transmitters and matched resonant receivers. The lightweight, compact, and low-cost transmitters produce high-power acoustic pulses at one or more discrete frequencies with very little input power. The transducer systems are well suited for coupling acoustic pulse energy into dense media, such as walls and water. Applications of the impact transducers are discussed, including detection and tracking of humans through walls and long-duration underwater surveillance by a low-cost network of autonomous, self-recharging, battery-operated sonobuoys. A conceptual design of a sonobuoy surveillance network for harbors and littoral waters is presented. An impact-transmitter and matched-receiver system that detected human motion through thick walls with only rudimentary signal processing is described, and results are presented. Signal processing methods for increasing the signal-to-noise ratio by several tens of dB are discussed.