Development of a biomimetic eardrum for acoustic sensing

The desert locust (schistocerca gregaria) has ears integrating sound reception, impedance transformation and frequency discrimination in a single passive membrane. The anatomy and frequency dependent response of these ears to acoustic input have been extensively studied before. This is the inspiration for the development of a new acoustic sensor with integrated mechanical filtering. We have worked on a new micro-fabrication process based on conformal deposition of Parylene on silicon which was used to make membranes with similar variations in tension, thickness and mass density as the tympanal membrane of the locust. Mapped vibration measurements show similarities in the behaviour of the artificial membrane with the biological original, showing the potential of the approach for future energy efficient passive mechanical filtering approaches.