An acoustic metamaterial lens for acoustic point-to-point communication in air

TL;DR

This paper introduces a 3D acoustic metamaterial lens that enables precise point-to-point sound communication in air, allowing the source to be moved freely while focusing sound at a specific point.

Contribution

The study designs a novel 3D acoustic metamaterial lens that allows flexible source positioning and focused sound transmission in air, verified through numerical simulations.

Findings

Effective focusing of sound at a specific point in air

Ability to move the acoustic source freely within the lens

Numerical simulations confirm the lens's performance

Abstract

Acoustic metamaterials have become a novel and effective way to control sound waves and design acoustic devices. In this study, we design a 3D acoustic metamaterial lens (AML) to achieve point-to-point acoustic communication in air: any acoustic source (i.e. a speaker) in air enclosed by such an AML can produce an acoustic image where the acoustic wave is focused (i.e. the field intensity is at a maximum, and the listener can receive the information), while the acoustic field at other spatial positions is low enough that listeners can hear almost nothing. Unlike a conventional elliptical reflective mirror, the acoustic source can be moved around inside our proposed AML. Numerical simulations are given to verify the performance of the proposed AML.