Transducers and Underwater Transducers: An Introduction to the Topic
Do you want to know what are transducers and underwater transducers?
What is a transducer?
Let us explain the concept with a simple example. Imagine that you are talking with a friend on your phone via a landline. How does your voice travel to your friend’s phone?
When you talk, the telephone captures the sound waves and converts them into an equivalent electrical signal. The phone sends the electrical signal through the telephone cable. The signal travels from your phone to your friend’s phone. Finally, your friend’s phone transforms the electrical signal into the original sound signal.
A transducer is a device that converts energy from one form into another. Usually one of those energies is an electrical signal, but not always. For instance, some transducers transform energy into movement.
Transducer types
Input transducers
They capture the changes in the environment, like sound waves and convert them into electrical signals. An example of an acoustic input transducer is a microphone.
Output transducers
They convert an electrical signal into another form of energy, such as the sound produced by a speaker. These transducers are frequently called actuators.
Bidirectional transducers
They are those that incorporate a sensor and an actuator into the same device. One example is radio antennas. Radio antennas can receive radio waves, transform them into electrical signals, and in turn, can transform electrical signals into radio waves.
Underwater transducers
Light and radio waves attenuate considerably underwater. Scientists long ago identified that sound waves propagate easily underwater, so they decided to apply that knowledge to explore the seas by creating underwater transducers.
Underwater transducers generate or receive underwater signals, for example, water movement or sound waves. They are watertight devices, and corrosion-resistant.
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Underwater ultrasonic acoustic transducers
Ultrasonic acoustic transducers produce or detect sound at frequencies of 20,000 Hz and above. They are used for such applications as underwater communications, positioning, sub-bottom profiling, seabed mapping, 2D and 3D imaging, fish finding, and ultrasonic inspection.
One of their advantages is they are small in size and relatively low cost. They are, however, limited to use at short distances.
Products
C-BASS Family
The C-BASS are electrodynamic projectors that provide high power, efficiency, and a broader band than similar products in the market.
HyDROPHONES
These hydrophones are characterized by having a wideband, and their preamplifier works with low power, generating low noise.
VECTOR SENSORS
The benefit of the vector sensors compared with the hydrophone is they can also measure the acceleration 2D or 3D orthogonally.
BENDERS
These are known as broadband flexural disk transducers. They can reach a high amplitude at frequencies close to the resonance and, for the rest, medium amplitude.
FFR – Free-Flooded Rings
The free flooding ring has the advantage, unlike the other models, that due to its design, it can be used at any depth.
SPHERES
Spheres are a type of projector that can generate and receive waves between 11 kHz-150 kHz. They are small and light.
Rising Tide BioAcoustics is a worldwide authorized distributor of GeoSpectrum Technologies Inc. commercial transducers for environmental and bioacoustics applications.