Proceedings of the 17th World Congress

The International Federation of Automatic Control

Seoul, Korea, July 6-11, 2008

A HIGHLY-DIRECTIONAL ULTRASONIC RANGE SENSOR USING A STEPPED-PLATE

TRANSDUCER

Yub Je, Jong-Kyu Park, Haksu Lee, Dong hoon Yi, Wonkyu Moon

Pohang University of Science and Technology

Pohang, Korea

Abstract: A new type of highly-directional ultrasonic range sensor is designed,

fabricated, and tested in this paper. To improve directivity, the parametric acoustic
array, a nonlinear effect of media between two intensive waves, is applied to an
ultrasonic range sensor. Additionally, a new type of the stepped-plate transducer is
applied for generating high amplitude waves consisting of two frequencies. The
proposed transducer shows a half power beam width(HPBW) of 5° at 40 kHz that is
much higher directivity than the general ultrasonic range spatial sensor (typically
20°). Therefore, this research shows the possibility to improve the resolution of the
ultrasonic range sensor. Copyright © 2008 IFAC

Keywords: Sensors and actuators, Navigation, Sensing, Ultrasonic range sensor,

Parametric acoustic array,

1. INTRODUCTION
A new type of highly-directional ultrasonic range
An ultrasonic range sensor is generally installed in a sensor is proposed in this paper. To improve
robot for range detection and obstacle recognition. directivity, the parametric acoustic array, a nonlinear
Many researches of ultrasonic range sensors were effect of the media between two intensive waves is
conducted from the 1900s and many commercial used. As two high frequency (primary) waves of
products have been released (Murata; Polaroid). One sufficiently high amplitude propagate, the difference
of the most important reasons for using several tens frequency (secondary) wave is generated due to the
of kHz for the range sensor focuses on the directivity nonlinear effect of the media. Because the media acts
of the sensor. The half power beam width (HPBW) of like a mutual line source, a directional sound beam
the piston source with a diameter D can be can be generated in low frequency region. The
determined by this equation 1 (L. Kinsler, et al., secondary wave exhibits cumulative and fewer
1982). attenuation characteristics, therefore, only the
secondary wave remains in the far-field region
θ = Sin −1[1.22 × c /( f × D)] (1) making it suitable for long-range detection. Since
Westervelt (P.J.Westervelt 1963) first described this
Therefore, the increment of the piston area and the phenomenon, numerous studies have been conducted
frequency leads to higher directivity. However, the on underwater acoustics for sonar applications.
piston area is limited by its incorporation into a robot. The transducer design is also important for
Also, a frequency limit exists due to the high generating the high-amplitude primary wave.
absorption characteristic of high frequency. Due to Because the parametric acoustic array requires a
these conditions, directivity is limited in traditional highly intensive primary wave, the transducer should
methods. The general ultrasonic range sensor has a have a large radiation area. Generally, there are two
HPBW of 20° (Polaroid) or 40° (Murata) at 40 kHz . approaches for a large radiation area. One is using an

978-3-902661-00-5/08/$20.00 © 2008 IFAC 15780 10.3182/20080706-5-KR-1001.1935

17th IFAC World Congress (IFAC'08)
Seoul, Korea, July 6-11, 2008

array of transducers and the other is using a thick Each functional requirement relates to the following
radiation plate. However, the array transducer is design parameters.
expensive to fabricate and the transducer with a thick „ DP111 – plate mass, type and size of
plate has low power efficiency. To improve on these mechanical amplifier (operating material
problems, the stepped-plate, which is less expensive and operating method)
yet has high power efficiency, is applied for the „ DP112 – position of steps, radiation area.
radiation plate. The steps that have a height of half „ DP12 – size of electrodes (operating material)
wavelength of sound in air compensate the flexural „ DP2 –primary and secondary frequency,
vibration of the plate. Therefore, a large and thin piston radius
radiation plate leads to high power efficiency. The „ DP3 – material (operating material)
base model proposed by Gallego-Juarez (Gallego- „ DP4 – natural frequency of each component,
Juarez et al., 1978) is suitable for only material (frequency band of modulating
monofrequency radiation. However, high amplitude signal)
radiation with two frequencies is required for
difference frequency generation. Therefore, a new
type of the stepped-plate that generates a high- 2.2 Parametric acoustic array design.
amplitude wave with two frequencies is proposed. The transducer design procedure can be divided into
In this manner, a new type of highly-directional two steps: design of the parametric acoustic array and
ultrasonic range sensor is proposed in this paper. The design of the stepped-plate. Firstly, the optimal
sensor can radiate a high-amplitude ultrasonic beam primary frequencies are determined by a simulation
with two frequencies for difference-frequency of the parametric acoustic array. Then, the transducer
generation. The difference frequency wave shows a is designed to operate for optimal primary
HPBW of 5° that is primarily directional. However, it frequencies.
has large side lobes in its directional pattern of The difference frequency is determined to be 40 kHz
difference frequency. Considering as the first model, that has been used generally in ultrasonic range
it can be better in the next model. Therefore, this type sensor. Under this condition, primary frequencies are
of transducer shows possibilities for improving the determined by parametric acoustic array simulation.
resolution of the ultrasonic range sensor. The optimal frequencies with respect to sound
pressure level and beam width are determined for
2. DESIGN METHOD difference frequency generation (B.K.Novikov et al.,
1987). Figure 2 shows the sound pressure level of the
difference frequency at a distance of 4 m with respect
2.1 Axiomatic design. to the first primary frequency. The peak appeared at
the first primary frequency of 78.1 kHz. Therefore,
The directional ultrasonic range sensor has the the transducer is designed to operate at the
following functional requirements. frequencies of 80 kHz and 120 kHz.
„ FR1 – high efficiency for ultrasonic 95

radiation
Diffrence frequency amplitudeHPaL

‹ FR11 high acoustic intensity

90

9 FR111 high velocity amplitude of 85

radiation plate 80

9 FR112 high radiation impedance

75
‹ FR12 low current consumption
„ FR2 – high efficiency for difference 70

frequency generation 65

„ FR3 – low manufacturing cost 60

„ FR4 – two frequency band 0 50000
Primay frequency HHz L
100000 150000 200000

Figure 1 illustrates the schematic diagram of Fig. 2. Difference frequency generation with respect
functional requirements. to the first primary frequency
FR1 FR2 FR3 FR4

2.3 Transducer design.

FR11 FR12

One of the most important design parameters of a

highly directional ultrasonic transducer is the
FR111 FR112 radiation area. The radiation area is related not only
to the sound pressure level but also to the directional
Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of functional requirements
pattern. However, an increase of the radius of the

15781
17th IFAC World Congress (IFAC'08)
Seoul, Korea, July 6-11, 2008

plate for a large radiation area results in flexural

vibration. Figure 3 demonstrates the vibration test of Figure 6 illustrates the compensating method of the
the plane by the scanning vibrometer manufactured new stepped-plate transducer. The principle that the
by Polytec It shows (a) flexural vibrating mode of wavelength at 80 kHz is 3 / 2 times longer than the
plate and (b) discrete phase difference. The wavelength at 120 kHz is applied. Let λ be the
directional pattern of the large plate with flexural wavelength of the 120 kHz ultrasonic wave.
vibration is shown in Figure 4. A poor directional Subsequently, the steps should have the height of
pattern resulted from the discrete phase difference of λ / 2, 3λ / 2, 5λ / 2... to phase compensation of the
the plate. 120 kHz vibration. For an 80 kHz ultrasonic wave,
the wavelength is 3λ / 2 . The step height required to
compensate an 80 kHz wave is 3λ / 4 . Therefore,
after compensation of the 80 kHz wave with the steps
of 3λ / 4 height, the compensation of the 120 kHz
wave with the steps of 3λ / 2 height can be
(a) (b) conducted less influence to the 80 kHz wave. Figure
Fig. 3. (a) Flexural mode of the vibrating plate (a) 7 shows the mode shape of the stepped-plate
and (b) discrete phase difference simulated by FEM tools. The step position is
determined at the nodal point of mode shaped.

Fig. 6. Compensating method for two frequencies

Fig. 4. Directional pattern of flexural vibration

(Gallego-Juarez et al., 1978)

Therefore, Gallego-Juarez et al. proposed the

(a)
stepped-plate transducer in order to have a large
radiation area. Figure 5 shows the Gallego-Juarez
plate and its compensating method. The compensated
discrete phase difference was generated by placing a
step at the nodal line of the plate. The steps have the
height of half wavelength of sound in air. Therefore,
the plate vibrates in phase like a uniform piston.
(b)
Fig. 7. Mode shape of the plate of (a) 80 kHz and (b)
120 kHz

The directional pattern is predicted by the Rayleigh

integral. In the Rayleigh integral, an infinitesimal
area of the plate is assumed to be a spherical source.
Subsequently, the directional pattern can be obtained
by integration over all infinitesimal elements. The
sound pressure level can be determined by the
following equation. (Kinsler, et al., 1982)
Fig. 5. The stepped-plate and its compensating
method (Gallego-Juarez et al., 1978)
jρ 0 c 1 a 2π e j (ωt −kr ')
2 λ ∫0 ∫0
p= U (σ , φ )dφdσ (3)
The original model of Gallego-Juarez et al., (1978) is r'
suitable for monofrequency radiation only. In order U : Source distribution
to generate the difference frequency efficiently, a
sufficiently high amplitude wave with two frequency r': Distance from piston
components is required. Therefore, in this research, a : Piston radius
the stepped-plate is upgraded to compensate the
flexural vibration for two frequency components.

15782
17th IFAC World Congress (IFAC'08)
Seoul, Korea, July 6-11, 2008

to the stepped horn that has the largest magnification

factor (Eisner and Seager, 1965). The radius of the
plate is 5 cm, and the length of the horn is 5 cm.

(a)

Fig. 9. Schematic design of the transducer

3. EXPERIMENT

(b) Experiments were conducted to determine the

radiation characteristics of the transducer. The
transducer has resonance frequencies at 74.8 kHz and
115 kHz. The small difference in the design
frequency is due to the error in material properties
and fabrication. The difference frequency is
generated at 40 kHz. Figure 10 shows the designed
transducer.

(c)
Fig. 8. Directional pattern of (a) the uniform plate,
(b) the Gallego-Juarez stepped-plate, and (c) the
new type of stepped-plate

Figure 8 shows the directional pattern of uniform

plate, Gallego-Juarez stepped plate and the new type
of the stepped plate. The uniform plate shows poor
directional patterns for both frequencies due to the Fig. 10. The designed transducer
flexural vibration of the piston. The Gallego-Juarez
stepped-plate demonstrated a good directional pattern In Figure 11, the experimental set-up illustrates the
at 80 kHz, but a poor directional pattern at 120 kHz. characteristics of the ultrasonic range sensor. The
The new model proposed in this research showed input signal from two function generators is
good directional patterns at both 80 kHz and 120 kHz. amplified by the power amplifier. Then, the
Therefore, good directional patterns for both amplified signal is applied to the transducer to
frequencies can lead to efficient difference frequency generate the primary wave. The difference frequency
generation (Novikov et al., 1987). wave generated by the parametric acoustic array is
The resonance frequency and the position of the measured by the microphone. The signal from the
nodal line are determined by classical plate theory microphone passes a conditioning amp and is
(Airey, 1910). The steps are positioned at the nodal visualized at the FFT or oscilloscope. All electronic
line of the plate. Using FEM tools, the resonance components in this system can be integrated in a
frequency is tuned because steps are added to the small modular circuit for commercial use. Every
plane of the plate. The selection of the transducer experiment is conducted in an anechoic room.
material is also an important problem. The maximum
acoustic power generated by the transducer is related
to the material of which the transducer is composed.
Materials having high wave-propagation speeds can
have sufficient stiffness in a relatively thin plate
(Gallego-Juarez et al., 1978). Therefore, an
aluminum alloy is used for the ultrasonic range
sensor. A type of mechanical amplifier is determined

15783
17th IFAC World Congress (IFAC'08)
Seoul, Korea, July 6-11, 2008

acoustic array should not have a discernable side

lobe; this will be discussed in section 4.

The sound pressure level of the difference frequency

is measured along the acoustic axis by moving the
microphone from 5 cm to 1 m. Figure 13 shows the
sound pressure level of the primary and secondary
waves along the acoustic axis. The maximum sound
pressure level is measured 120 dB for the primary
wave, and 80dB for the secondary wave. Considering
this approach as an initial model, subsequent models
Fig. 11. The experimental set-up can be improved by the optimal design method. From
the graph (Figure 13), the attenuation effect of the
The directivities for both primary and secondary secondary wave is observed to be less than that of the
waves are measured at a distance of 1m. The primary wave. Therefore, in the region greater than 5
measurements are conducted by moving a m, the difference frequency component will be more
microphone from 0° to 90° relative to the acoustic intense than the primary wave. Irregular patterns of
axis. A voltage of 90 Vpk is applied to the transducer the secondary wave below 60 cm result from the
through the power amplifier. near-field effect of the piston.

120

100

80
SPL (d B)

60
Prim ary 74.9kH z
40 Prim ary 115.3kH z
Seco nd ary 40.4kH z
20

(a) 0
0 20 40 60 80 100
A xial d istance (cm )

Figure. 13. Sound pressure level along the acoustic

axis

4. DISCUSSION

The effects of the proposed stepped-plate transducer

(b) are confirmed experimentally. A highly directional
Fig. 12. Directional pattern of (a) the primary wave beam is generated at 80 kHz and 120 kHz.
and (b) the secondary wave Additionally, the secondary wave exhibited a HPBW
of 5° that is highly directional compared to general
Figure 12 shows the directional patterns for the
ultrasonic range sensors. Therefore, this new type of
primary wave and the secondary wave. They show
the transducer is quietly suitable as an ultrasonic
similar directional patterns to those of the Rayleigh
range sensor.
integral in figure 8. The directional patterns for 80
kHz and 120 kHz have a HPBW of 5°. Therefore, the However, the new type of the stepped-plate
performance of the new stepped-plate simulated by transducer shows relatively large side lobes.
Rayleigh integral is confirmed. The secondary wave Theoretically, the secondary wave should not have
generated by the parametric acoustic array shows side lobes because it has a line source by a nonlinear
similar directivity to the primary wave. The effect (B.K.Novikov et al., 1987). Even at 30° from
secondary wave also has a HPBW of 5°. This is the acoustic axis, some side lobes exist that are not
much higher directivity than the stepped-plate negligible.
transducer for 40 kHz that has a HPBW of 12°
A nonlinear effect of the transducer is suspected to be
However, the directional pattern of the difference the cause of this problem. This transducer consumes
frequency shows large side lobes. The level high voltage and generates high displacement to
difference between the major lobe and the side lobes produce a high sound pressure level. Therefore, the
is only 10 dB. Therefore, detecting an obstacle with vibration of the difference frequency component is
high resolution can be problematic. Theoretically, the generated from the nonlinear effect of the transducer.
difference frequency generated by the parametric The difference frequency wave radiates directly from

15784
17th IFAC World Congress (IFAC'08)
Seoul, Korea, July 6-11, 2008

the plate. The nonlinear vibration of the plate was

confirmed using a laser vibrometer. Figure 14 shows ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
the results. As the input voltage increases, the
nonlinear effect becomes more significant. This work was partly supported by the IT R&D
program of MIC/IITA. [2005-S-111-02, Intelligent
Robot Sensor] and partly supported by Defense
Acquisition Program Administration and Agency for
Defense Development under the contract
UD070054AD.

REFERENCES

L. Kinsler, A. Frey, A. Coppens, and J. Sanders.

(1982), Fundamentals of Acoustics, Wiley, New
York
P.J.Westervelt. (1963), Parametric acoustic array,
Fig. 14. Nonlinear vibration of the plate
Journal of Acoustical Society of America, 35 (4),
This phenomenon is a near-field effect that usually 535-537
occurs in the general parametric array apparatus. J.A.Gallego-Juarez et al., (1978), An ultrasonic
Therefore, the side lobes resulting from direct transducer for high power applications in gases,
generation become less in the far-field region. Ultrasonics, 16 (6), 267-271
However, for improved performance, reducing B. K. Novikov, O.V. Rudenko, and V.I. Timoshenko,
nonlinear effect is required. (1987), Nonlinear Underwater Acoustics, The
American Institute of Physics, New York
A nonlinear effect is difficult to estimate by an M.F.Hamilton and D.T.Blackstock (1998), Nonlinear
analytic method or a FEM simulation. Therefore, an Acoustics, Academic Press
experimental approach and intuitive design is E.Eisner and J.S.Seager (1965), A longitudinally
considered. To reduce the nonlinear vibration of the resonant stub for vibrations of large amplitude,
plate, the transducer must be designed to have less Ultrasonics, 3(2), 88-98
stress. In the model examined in this research, all John R Airey (1910), The vibrationos of circular
components of the transducer (plate, the mechanical plates and their relation to Bessel functions, Phys,
amplifier and the PZT) are assembled by bolting. The Soc. London 23, 225-232
nonlinear vibration is generated by the stress applied
to the screw. Therefore, in subsequent models, the
transducer should be fabricated as a single unit
without the need to bolt components together. The
mechanical amplifier will be also changed to a linear
horn to reduce the stress.

In the future, research to obtain higher sound

pressure levels will also be conducted. The design of
a mechanical amplifier including piezoelectric
characteristics will be considered to estimate more
correct resonance frequency. Then, considering the
resonance with the plate, a transducer with greater
power-efficiency can be designed.

5. CONCLUSION

A new type of highly-directional ultrasonic range

sensor is designed, fabricated, and tested in this paper.
The new type of the stepped-plate transducer is
applied to generate an ultrasonic wave with two-
frequency components. Using the parametric acoustic
array with this transducer, a highly directional
ultrasonic beam having a HPBW of 5° is generated.
This type of transducer shows the possibility to
improve the resolution of the ultrasonic range sensor.

15785