Acoustic transducer and underwater sounding apparatus

摘要

An acoustic transducer 1 has a first cylindrical portion 1 A and a second hemispherical portion 1 B on which a plurality of transducer elements 10 a , 10 b are arranged. The transducer elements on the cylindrical portion are arranged to have six nearest neighbors. The arrangement may be such that the six transducer elements surrounding a given element describe the vertices of a regular hexagon. The hexagons thus described may be aligned so that two of their sides are parallel to the axis of the cylinder. The elements on the hemispherical portion may be arranged so that some elements have five nearest neighbors and others have six (the neighboring elements describing, for example, the vertices of hexagons and pentagons respectively). An underwater sounding apparatus may be constructed using the transducer.