Partial activation of modular and foldable tessellated acoustic arrays for wave focusing

Abstract

Tessellated acoustic arrays inspired by origami structures are suggested to enable wave focusing by exploiting curvatures realized by folded configurations of the array transducer elements. The use of origami-inspired folding patterns also cultivates great portability for space-limited applications. Yet, maintaining curvatures may prohibit feasible implementation of a tessellated been studied for the acoustic energy focusing usage. This research proposes an alternative technique to achieve wave focusing with tessellated arrays that do not realize curvatures upon folding. Here, the partial activation of a tessellated array is exploited to result in constructive interference that realizes a nearfield focal region. The modeling approach to examine partially activated arrays is presented and verified against numerical simulations. Then, the changes in nearfield focusing characteristics are correlated with corresponding changes in partial activation and array folding extent. The opportunities to exploit the partial activation of relatively simple origami-inspired array structures are examined to identify strategies to simplify implementation of portable, folding acoustic arrays in applications.