SPHERICAL HYDROACOUSTIC ANTENNA Russian patent published in 2014 - IPC G01S15/00 

FIELD: physics, acoustics.

SUBSTANCE: invention relates to hydroacoustic engineering. The antenna has a thin-walled hollow spherical casing, piezoelectric transducers and a support for mounting the antenna to a carrier. The spherical casing is acoustically transparent and is made of plastic with uniformly arranged openings for filling the casing with water when the antenna is immersed in water. The piezoelectric transducers are mounted on the inner surface of the spherical casing. The transducers are omnidirectional in the operating wavelength range of the antenna and are arranged in twelve groups such that the centres of the groups are located at the vertices of the icosahedron inscribed in the sphere at distances less than or equal to 1.5 times the wavelength of the maximum frequency of the band of the received signal; each of the twelve groups is formed by three transducers such that the acoustic centre of each transducer of the group is located on the vertex of an equilateral triangle with side length equal to half the wavelength of the maximum frequency of the band of the received signal. The transducers are arranged such that the axis of the antenna support lies perpendicular to one of the edges of the icosahedron and passes through the centre of the equilateral triangle formed by that edge.

EFFECT: protecting piezoelectric transducers from external mechanical action, low weight of the antenna, possibility of determining the direction of hydroacoustic signal sources with high accuracy and resolution with small dimensions of the antenna aperture.

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