Title :
Ultrasonic underwater thruster
Author :
Yu, Hongyu ; Kim, Eun Sok
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Electr. Eng. Electrophys., Univ. of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Abstract :
This paper describes a novel ultrasonic underwater thruster without any moving part. Our typical ultrasonic underwater thruster weighs only about 0.3 mN, but can produce 5.6 mN thrust, producing a thrust ratio of 19:1. The thruster moves forward by shooting out water jet stream backward through an acoustic streaming effect. To enhance the acoustic streaming effect, the self-focusing acoustic transducer (SFAT) is used. In this paper, two transducer structure designs and three electrode designs are described and compared.
Keywords :
acoustic streaming; acoustic transducers; micromechanical devices; ultrasonic devices; acoustic streaming effect; electrode designs; micromechanical devices; self focusing acoustic transducer; transducer structure designs; ultrasonic underwater thruster; water jet stream; Acoustic reflection; Acoustic transducers; Acoustic waves; Electrodes; Nonlinear acoustics; Piezoelectric films; Piezoelectric transducers; Ultrasonic imaging; Ultrasonic transducers; Underwater acoustics;
Conference_Titel :
Micro Electro Mechanical Systems, 2004. 17th IEEE International Conference on. (MEMS)
Print_ISBN :
0-7803-8265-X
DOI :
10.1109/MEMS.2004.1290628
