Acoustic vector sensor: reviews and future perspectives

Acoustic vector sensor (AVS) has been recently researched and developed for acoustic wave capturing and signal processing. Conventional array generally employs spatially displayed sensors for signal enhancement, source localisation, target tracking, etc. However, the large size usually limits its implementations on some portable devices. AVS which generally includes one omni-directional sensor and three orthogonally co-located directional sensors has been recently introduced. An AVS is able to provide the four-dimensional information of sound field in space: the acoustic pressure and its three-dimensional particle velocities. A compact assembled AVS could be as small as a match head and the weight can be <50g. Benefits from these properties, AVS tends to be more attractive for exploitation and commercialisation than conventional sensor array. To have a well understanding of the research progress on AVS, an overview on its recent developments is first given in this study. Then, discussions of challenges on AVS and extensions on its possible future prospects are presented.