Broadband Transduction Implementation and System Impact

Very broad bandwidth transduction capability has been made possible by high coupling piezoelectric single crystal materials. Recent work has shown that PMN-PT based tonpilz elements with a single resonance have a device electromechanical coupling coefficient greater than 0.86 and can easily achieve more than two octaves of source level bandwidth. An array of these devices will be compared to an existing array of doubly resonant hybrid magnetostrictive-piezoelectric tonpilz elements currently in use. Implementing single crystal based tonpilz elements reduces array packaging volume and weight while maintaining source level and reducing system complexity when compared to a similar hybrid array. Evaluation of any transduction scheme must be conducted from a system level. A typical transduction system consists of: power source, amplifier, impedance matching, and transducer. Real world systems such as Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) place constraints on available power, weight and packaging volume. Also important is transmit system efficiency because of power draw and thermal dissipation. Power lost through system inefficiency must be dissipated as heat. Increased thermal load complicates packaging design for thermal mitigation. This evaluation will include the complete transmit system and will provide power (VA), weight, volume, and system cost in addition to array performance. The advantages and disadvantages of single crystal projector integration and a complete system impact relative to an existing technology will be presented.