Document Type
Poster Session
Department
Engineering
Faculty Mentor
Mustafa Guvench, PhD
Abstract
The parasitic fly Ormia Ochracea has become the center point in sound localization research because of its finely tuned hearing abilities. To dispose of its eggs, the female of this species uses these hearing abilities to determine the direction of sound produced by its host cricket. The eardrums of the fly are coupled by a tympanal bridge making the fly’s hearing system hyper sensitive to a specific frequency of approximately 10KHz. Unlike previous designs which implemented MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical System) on a chip to mimic these abilities, an upscale version of the fly’s hearing mechanism was implemented using thin layer piezoelectric material and stiff brass. The first iteration using steel produced resonant frequencies well below the desired value. This was due to manufacturing, material selection, and design. These issues were corrected using brass and the desired value of 10kHz was achieved. A sound chamber for demonstration purposes was in the stage of construction before the COVID-19 pandemic and will not be available. Blueprints of the sound chamber will be mentioned and discussed. Overall, the new design will result in a more affordable and durable representation of the fly’s hearing mechanism, which can be used in making highly directional microphones, hearing aids and other sensors. To conduct this study Solidworks and Multisim simulation softwares were used.
Open Access?
1
Design, Simulation, and Testing of Piezoelectric Directional Acoustic Sensors Biomimetic of the fly Ormia Ochracea Hearing
The parasitic fly Ormia Ochracea has become the center point in sound localization research because of its finely tuned hearing abilities. To dispose of its eggs, the female of this species uses these hearing abilities to determine the direction of sound produced by its host cricket. The eardrums of the fly are coupled by a tympanal bridge making the fly’s hearing system hyper sensitive to a specific frequency of approximately 10KHz. Unlike previous designs which implemented MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical System) on a chip to mimic these abilities, an upscale version of the fly’s hearing mechanism was implemented using thin layer piezoelectric material and stiff brass. The first iteration using steel produced resonant frequencies well below the desired value. This was due to manufacturing, material selection, and design. These issues were corrected using brass and the desired value of 10kHz was achieved. A sound chamber for demonstration purposes was in the stage of construction before the COVID-19 pandemic and will not be available. Blueprints of the sound chamber will be mentioned and discussed. Overall, the new design will result in a more affordable and durable representation of the fly’s hearing mechanism, which can be used in making highly directional microphones, hearing aids and other sensors. To conduct this study Solidworks and Multisim simulation softwares were used.
