Characteristics of an ultrasonic phased array transmitter in medium range.

An ultrasonic phased array transmitter (PAT) consisting of 12×12 elements was designed and fabricated to evaluate its experimental characteristic performance in the medium range of 2m-10m for its directivity, pulse width affect and sound pressure level (SPL) measurements as a function of distance from its center in the open air. The SPL was measured at 2 m, 5m, and 10m distances as 135dB, 126dB and 68dB, respectively. The experimentally measured directivity patterns were found in good agreement with the theoretical results obtained by using MATLAB simulations. The SPL showed negligible change as a function of the ultrasonic pulse widths such as 0.5ms, 1ms and 2ms. The SPL and directivity of the PAT at 2m distance were measured for ultrasonic pulse width of 0.1ms only while as at 10m distance these were measured for the ultrasonic pulse widths of 0.5ms, 1ms and 2ms. The present investigations on the PAT characteristics are expected to be useful for its industrial, scientific and biomedical applications, e.g., robotics for 3D range imaging with improved and efficient object presence sensing as well as nondestructive health monitoring.