Miniaturized PMUT-Based Receiver for Underwater Acoustic Networking

The present work reports on the novel implementation of a miniaturized receiver for underwater networking merging a Piezoelectric Micromachined Ultrasonic Transducer (PMUT) array and signal conditioning circuitry in a single, packaged device. Tests in both a large water tank and a pool demonstrated that the system can attain large enough Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) for communication at distances beyond two meters. An actual communication test, implementing an Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) scheme, was used to characterize the performance of the link in terms of Bit Error Rate (BER) vs SNR. In comparison to previous work demonstrating high-data rate communication for intra-body links and acoustic duplexing, this implementation allows for significantly larger distances of transmission, while addressing the signal conditioning and submersible packaging needs for underwater conditions, thus enabling PMUT arrays for operating as complete underwater communication receivers.