Directional Sound Sensor With Consistent Directivity and Sensitivity in the Audible Range

Inspired by the human cochlea, we propose a directional sound sensor using a resonator array to overcome the limitations of existing directional microphones. The proposed sensor consists of multiple cantilevers that respond to different resonance frequencies and separately acquire signals to then combine them for sound sensing. The directionality of the cantilevers is bipolar (figure-of-8) because a signal proportional to the input sound's pressure gradient is generated. We adopt multimode resonance to cover the wide frequency range of 100-8,000 Hz using few resonators. A wide-bandwidth (low-quality-factor) trenched cantilever is used to obtain a flat frequency response. Bidirectional sound sensors are tapered to achieve acoustic beamforming by simple signal processing. The directional characteristics can be easily changed according to the weighted sum of the signals acquired from a pair of sensors. We demonstrate that ambient noise can be effectively suppressed through beamforming to acquire the desired signal using the proposed sensor. [2021-0012]

Automated summary

Inspired by the human cochlea, a directional sound sensor using a resonator array and multiple cantilevers is proposed to achieve sound sensing. The use of multimode resonance and wide-bandwidth cantilevers, combined with simple signal processing, enables acoustic beamforming.