A wave-confining metasphere beamforming acoustic sensor for superior human-machine voice interaction.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 36170358.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1126/sciadv.adc9230 and PMC identifier 9519046.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Highly sensitive, source-tracking acoustic sensing is essential for effective and natural human-machine interaction based on voice. It is a known challenge to omnidirectionally track sound sources under a hypersensitive rate with low noise interference using a compact sensor. Here, we present a unibody acoustic metamaterial spherical shell with equidistant defected piezoelectric cavities, referred to as the metasphere beamforming acoustic sensor (MBAS). It demonstrates a wave-confining capability and low self-noise, simultaneously achieving an outstanding intrinsic signal-to-noise ratio (72 dB) and an ultrahigh sensitivity (137 mV<sub>pp</sub>/Pa or -26.3 dBV), with a range spanning the daily phonetic frequencies (0 to 1500 Hz) and omnidirectional beamforming for the perception and spatial filtering of sound sources. Moreover, the MBAS-based auditory system is shown for high-performance audio cloning, source localization, and speech recognition in a noisy environment without any signal enhancement, revealing its promising applications in various voice interaction systems.