Characterizing underwater acoustic transducers often involves navigating trade-offs between signal-to-noise ratio, far-field conditions, and physical constraints like tank size, depth, and fixture geometry. This presentation introduces a lightweight simulation tool developed to help engineers and researchers quickly estimate and optimize test setups. Users can define simple inputs such as tank dimensions, sensor positions, and test frequencies, or include advanced parameters like impedance, quality factor, and sensitivity, as well as system-level specifications such as sampling rate, gain, and filtering. The tool also provides visualization of the signal chain to support intuitive understanding of system performance. Planned enhancements include modeling of wall reflections, complex geometries, and directional characteristics of sensors. In scenarios where-back-of-the-envelope calculations are not sufficient and detailed computational models are unnecessary or impractical—this tool fills the gap by offering fast, practical insights and reducing costly trial-and-error during setup.
Zachary Jensen (Wed,) studied this question.