Small-Scale Trial for Evaluating Directional Resolution of Single Spherical Biconcave Acoustic Lens in Designing of Ambient Noise Imaging System

Abstract

Ambient noise imaging (ANI) is the revolutionary idea of detecting objects by using natural ocean background noise. From the analysis results obtained by the finite difference time domain (FDTD) method in our previous studies, it was supposed that a spherical biconcave lens with an aperture diameter of 2.0 m has a sufficient directional resolution (for example, the beam width is 1° at 60 kHz) for realizing an ANI system. In this study, to confirm the analysis results, we performed a small-scale trial of one-fifth space in a water tank. The lens, made of acrylic resin, has an aperture diameter of 400 mm and a radius of curvature of 500 mm. A burst pulse of 25 cycles at 300 kHz, whose frequency increases 5 times, was radiated from the sound source. The sound pressure after passage through the acoustic lens was measured by moving the receiver around the image point. Results show that the shapes of -3 dB areas are similar to the FDTD analysis results at small incidence angles. It was verified that this lens has a sufficient directional resolution for use in the ANI system, because -3 dB areas do not overlap each other.