The Penn State Research Foundation

Charles W Allen

W Jack Hughes

Paul G Bednarchik

A phased-beam transducer is disclosed for transmitting and receiving steered acoustic beam signals that includes a sheet of piezoelectric material such as Polyvinylidene Fluoride (PVDF), a copolymer, piezo-rubber, quartz, 1-3 PZT composite, or similar transducer material. The transducer includes specially designed electrode on each side of the piezoelectric sheet. The transducer is a two channel device with a sine channel, cosine channel and a ground lead. A summing circuit is used to sum the sine and cosine channels with a 90 .degree. phase shift applied by a phase shift circuit to one of the two channels, for example, the sine channel. The transducer is designed to form a predetermined steered beam at a particular frequency. If a different sound wave frequencies are used, the transducer will form useful directional beams with different steer angles and beamwidths. Variable sector coverage is achieved by forming beams at different frequencies. The cosine and sine channels can be digitized with the 90 degree phase shift and the summing done digitally.

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State College, PA, United States of America

Charles W Allen