Bioinspired Transducer and Second-Generation Voltage Conveyor for a SONAR System

Abstract

Ultrasonic transducers for in-air applications are mostly characterized by a narrow frequency band, representing a technological bottleneck for bioinspired SONAR systems. To overcome actual limitations, efforts have been focused on both transducers and electronic interfaces using alternative technological solutions. The use of polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) has been proposed for the fabrication of an asymmetric-shaped ultrasonic transducer, inspired by the cochlea of mammals. Moreover, the generation and reception of ultrasounds exploited the use of second-generation voltage conveyors (VCII). Obtained results evidenced that the transducer possess interesting characteristics in terms of bandwidth (~ 80 kHz) and directionality (360° on both planes), while the electronic interfaces are characterized by a non-constant gain bandwidth product, so providing a wide bandwidth (100 kHz) also at higher gain level (90 dB in reception).