vious work in this area localizes and tracks an acous-
tic source using a ML estimator (Pandya et al., 2006)
and introduces a new method for imaging all flow
sources surrounding a sensor array (Pandya et al.,
2007). In this paper, we extend the work in (Pandya
et al., 2007) to cover mapping in three-dimentional
space (3D imaging). In particular, we review the
dipole model and modify the beamforming algorithm
in (Pandya et al., 2007) to handle 3D imaging of
dipoles using haircell sensors. Next, we present a
self-calibration algorithm to adjust the gains across
the sensors to improve estimation accuracy. Finally,
we derive the Cramer-Rao Lower Bound (CRLB) for
the dipole position estimate to find the fundamental
performance limits of the system.
2 ARTIFICIAL LATERAL-LINE
SENSORS
We have used three types of flow sensors to build arti-
ficial lateral lines: conventional hot-wire sensors, mi-
cromachined (MEMS) hot-wire sensors, and hair-cell
sensors (Figure 2). Both types of hot-wire sensors
operate on the heat dissipation principle. Voltage ap-
plied across a sensor heats up the wire. Movement of
water or air particles across the hot wire carries away
heat causing a change in the wire’s resistance and in
turn the current. The change in current reflects the
speed of water or air particles moving across the wire.
Figure 2: Three types of flow sensors for underwater acous-
tic signals.
Conventional hotwire sensors are bulky and
costly. This makes it hard to form small and dense
arrays of sensors for artificial lateral lines. To over-
come those drawbacks, micromachined hotwire sen-
sors have been developed (Chen et al., 2003). They
can be integrated to form a lateral line in a canal as
in fish or to form a dense array of sensors with 1mm
spacing . However, the sensors are fragile and cannot
distinguish the direction of flow. To avoid these prob-
lems, micromachined haircell sensors were invented
that operate on the same principle as in fish. The hair
of the sensor intercepts the flow, and the force applied
on the hair is transformed into stress at the base of the
hair. A piezo-electric strain gauge on a cantilever at
the base translates the stress into an electronic signal
(Yang et al., 2007). The advantages of the haircell
sensors are robustness and directional sensing capa-
bility.
3 FLOW IMAGING USING A
BEAMFORMING APPROACH
Our main goal is to estimate the locations of dipole
sources using arrays of flow sensors in an underwater
environment. In our laboratory experiment, the dipole
source is a small sphere oscillating back and forth in a
certain direction at a fixed frequency. We start with a
dipole source since it is simple enough so that its sur-
rounding flow field model is well established. More-
over, dipole-like flow sources are commonly encoun-
tered in nature, such as the waving tail of a fish. Bi-
ologists have extensively studied fish lateral-line re-
sponse to acoustic dipoles and found that fish can lo-
cate the source of a dipole and track its movement,
and at least some species treat it as prey (Coombs,
1994).
A model of an oscillating dipole source in fluid
has been well studied in (Coombs, 2003). The flow
velocity at a point in space near a dipole source is
modeled as
~v
flow
(r,θ) =
a
3
U
o
cos(θ)
r
3
ˆ
r+
a
3
U
o
2
sin(θ)
r
3
ˆ
θ.
(1)
In the above equation, the flow velocity is a function
of the dipole diameter a, the initial vibrational veloc-
ity amplitude U
o
, and the observation distance r and
angle θ as shown in Figure 3a. Also,
ˆ
r and
ˆ
θ are
unit vectors of the dipole’s spherical coordinates at
the sensor’s position.
The flow velocity in Equation (1) is, however,
derived in the dipole’s spherical coordinates. It is
more convenientto compute flow velocity in the fish’s
Cartesian coordinates (Figure 3b) so that we can de-
rive array patterns due to a dipole oscillating in a cer-
tain direction at some location in space. Transformed
into the fish’s Cartesian coordinates, the flow velocity
is then
~v
flow
(~s) =
a
3
U
o
2r
3
(3cos(θ)
ˆ
r−
ˆ
z
d
) (2)
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