A wave-confining metasphere beamforming acoustic sensor for superior human-machine voice interaction

Kejing Ma; Huyue Chen; Zhiyuan Wu; Xiangling Hao; Ge Yan; Wenbo Li; Lei Shao; Guang Meng; Wenming Zhang

doi:10.1126/sciadv.adc9230

A wave-confining metasphere beamforming acoustic sensor for superior human-machine voice interaction

Sci Adv. 2022 Sep 30;8(39):eadc9230. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adc9230. Epub 2022 Sep 28.

Authors

Kejing Ma¹, Huyue Chen², Zhiyuan Wu¹, Xiangling Hao², Ge Yan¹, Wenbo Li¹, Lei Shao², Guang Meng^{1

3}, Wenming Zhang^{1

3}

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Mechanical Systems and Vibration, School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, P. R. China.
² University of Michigan-Shanghai Jiao Tong University Joint Institute, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, P. R. China.
³ Interdisciplinary Research Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, P. R. China.

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_pp/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.