Ultrasonic
Ultrasonic

Acouspade Directional Speaker

ACOUstic SPAce DElimiter – Directional Speaker

The Acouspade™ hyper directional speaker enables you to focus a beam of sound to a specific point in the environment and to address the public with precise acoustic content at precise locations.

The Acouspade directional speaker can deliver a narrow beam of sound to a desired area while preserving silence around it, or allowing the co-existence of different sounds in the same space without mixing or interfering. The audio-beam created by Acouspade can cut through noisy environments and deliver a headphone-like experience for the listener.

Applications

  • Retail
  • Digital signage
  • Museum and gallery installations
  • Fairs and trade shows
  • Digital kiosks
  • Libraries
  • Automotive applications
  • Slot machines
  • Bars, restaurants
  • Hearing aid
Acouspade-directional-Sound-Speaker
Acouspade’s patent pending signal processing system includes a new, fully digital and extremely efficient amplifier, which requires no heat-sink at all. This allows for a complete integration of the system into the 22mm thin flat-panel emitter housing, making the Acouspade, the thinnest directional speaker on the market.

The new Acouspade has a lower noise floor as the previous versions but also, it has a larger emitter surface, which can generate higher sound volumes and deliver a clear message even in noisy environments.

With its two separated emitter panels, the new Acouspade offers an optimized sound-field distribution. It is precisely targeting the listeners ears, without wasting acoustic energy to the facial region.

Features

  • Bluetooth

The new Acouspade is the first directional speaker on the market that offers wireless content management via Bluetooth connection, which introduces completely new applications of the directional speaker. Imagine having a restaurant where each table occupies its own audio zone and enables the guest to play its own music from his smartphone. The bluetooth connection is integrated in all Acouspade AB(S)-134-DUMA-M/S models.

  • Motion detection

Acouspade ABS-134-DUMA-M/S

The Acouspade speaker can be equiped with a motion detection system, which can trigger audio content from an external Bluetooth player at the moment when the listener approaches the speaker.

  • Colours

Acouspade is available in three different colours: black, white and grey.

Acouspade – mounting options

Acouspade-directional-speaker-mounting-digital-signage

Spotlight mode

In case the Acouspade directional speaker is mounted on the same wall – on top or bellow the digital sign, it needs to point diagonally downwards or upwards respectively, in order for the audio beam to reach all possible heights of users. In this mode the sound can not always be heard at the exact same spot, since the listening spot will depend on the users height. In case of a digital-signage situation this should not be a problem since the listening spot will always be in front of the digital screen, but the distance of the sweet-spot from the screen will be determined by the person’s height and will vary within 1 to 2 meters. This mounting mode will also create more audible artifacts around the room, since the first surface (floor or ceiling) will be hit in a specific angle, which will reflect the sound to the next surface, and so on.

Sound shower mode

Ideally, the Acouspade directional speaker should be mounted on the ceiling, facing the floor. This creates a typical “sound-shower” situation, making the sound audible only at one spot in the room, while enabling it to be heard by people – of all heights – at the same spot. The sound-shower mode is also the best solution to minimize reflections of the sound and its audibility at different locations around the room. The sound starts to travel from the ceiling, bounces off the floor and is reflected back to the same spot at the ceiling, and so on.

Virtual speaker mode

A very interesting mounting situation is the “Virtual speaker mode”, where the speaker is not pointing directly towards the user. Instead, the speaker is pointing towards the digital sign, (or any other object that you want to draw attention to, by using directional sound) from which the sound beam bounces and arrives at the user indirectly. This situation makes it appear as if the sound originates from the object that it is being reflected from. The actual sound source remains hidden and is not noticed by the user.

Acouspade – Technical Specification

By focusing sound in a tight column, Acouspade™ is able to place sounds at any desired spatial location, making it possible to deliver acoustic information to the public precisely where it is needed.

Acouspade radiation patterns

Electrical

  • Input voltage: 230V or 120V, 50/60 Hz
  • Power supply: 24V/1A

Dimensions and weight

  • Acouspade speaker dimension: 370 x 176 x 22 mm
  • Acouspade speaker weight: 1100g

Operating environment

  • Temperature: -20°C to 60°C (-4°F – 140°F)
  • Humidity: 0 – 95% (non-condensing)

Ultrasonic and DSP processing

  • Carrier frequency: cca. 40 kHz
  • Modulation method: AM

Audio

  • Input impedance: 60k Ohms
  • Typical input signal: 160 mVrms
  • Frequency response: 150 Hz to 17 kHz
  • Max speaker output: 90 db @ 1kHz/1meter

Connectors

  • Audio input: 2x RCA
  • Bluetooth

Colours

  • Black
  • White
  • Grey

Directional audio systems, also called Parametric Acoustic Arrays (PAA) have found their way into many practical audio applications in the last decade or so, due to their high directivity. Parametric acoustic arrays have come a long way since their introduction by Peter J. Westervelt in 1963. Due to their high directivity and almost nonexistent side lobes, many applications have been developed using PAA ranging from underwater applications, speech and music reproduction to medical applications. The two main challenges that each PAA system has to overcome are low conversion efficiency of the high frequency primary waves into secondary (audible) waves and the distortion of the desired (modulation) signal.

A parametric acoustic array is created by emitting an intense and highly directed ultrasonic beam consisting of a carrier wave and signal components introduced by one of the various modulation types. The carrier interacts with other spectral components of the ultrasonic beam due to the nonlinearity of air at high acoustic sound pressure levels (SPL) and generates new spectral components along the ultrasonic beam.
Directional sound operating principle
These secondary waves contain audible spectral components related to the difference between the carrier and side bands. The nonlinearity of air also generates higher inaudible frequencies which are quickly absorbed due to the high absorption coefficient at high frequencies. Thus the ultrasonic source creates a beam of ultrasound which acts as a virtual array of sound sources.

Ultrasonic sound waves in the air are usually generated by piezoelectric or electrostatic transducers. The mechanical construction of the piezoelectric ceramic transducer that is used in the Acouspade directional speaker is shown below. The active element is a thin disc made of Lead Zirconate Titanate (PZT) ceramics. The applied voltage causes the disc to expand and contract. The center of the PZT disc is thus displaced vertically up or down depending on the polarity of the voltage. The mechanical properties of the materials used as well as their physical dimensions determine the resonant frequency and bandwidth of the transducer.

These transducers can continuously transmit a SPL of about 120 dB at 40 kHz when driven by 10 VRMS. PZT transducers have a small bandwidth and can be driven with a maximum driving voltage of 20 VRMS, which generates up to 126 dB SPL.

The main functional units of the modulator/amplifier in an ultrasound-based directional sound system are:

− input amplifier and signal conditioner
− low distortion quadrature oscillator
− integrated multiplier with adder
− D-class power amplifier
Directional sound signal processing system
Excerpt from the paper “Sources of Noise in Practical Implementations of Modulators/Amplifiers for Parametric Acoustic Arrays”, by authors: Matija Pirc and Andrej Levstek; Published at MIDEM 2014 – 50th International Conference on Microelectronics, Devices and Materials

The Acouspade directional speaker is a result of several years of research and development in the field of non-linear directional audio systems. The speaker exhibits a highly directional sound-field distribution, creating a laser-like beam of audible sound, that can be directed precisely to the location where it is needed. The sound is of high-quality, with low noise and great frequency response, which includes authentic reproduction of bass notes and frequencies as low as 150 Hz. The speaker itself is easy to use – you only need to plug the audio output of your source device (such as portable music player, laptop, DVD-player etc.) to the speaker input and you are ready to go.
Acouspade directional speaker
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