CHAPTER

Acoustic Sensors and Actuators

The ear
The ear is a sensor and actuator in more than one way. Essentially a mechanochemical
sensor, it includes a moving mechanism on the hearing side of the structure. But the ear also
features a gyroscope, the inner ear, responsible for stability and sense of position. The ear
itself is made of the outer and inner ear. The external ear is no more than a means of concentrating and guiding the sound toward the tympanic membrane (eardrum). In humans, the
external ear is a relatively small, static feature, but in some animals it is both large and
adjustable. The fenec fox, for example, has external ears that are larger than its head. At
the bottom of the ear canal, the tympanic membrane moves in response to sound and, in the
process, moves an assembly of three bones, the malleus (connected to the eardrum),
the incus (an intermediate flexural bone), and the stapes. The latter, the smallest bone in the
body, transmits the motion to the cochlea in the inner ear. The three bones not only transmit
the sound, but also amplify it through lever advantage afforded by their structure and
dimensions. The cochlea is a spiral tube filled with a fluid. The stapes move like a piston,
moving the fluid that in turn moves a series of hairlike structures lining the cochlea. These are
the actual sensors that release a chemical onto the auditory nerve to affect hearing.
The inner ear also contains three semicircular canals arranged at 90
to each other, with
two roughly vertical and one horizontal. They have a similar structure to the cochlea, including a
series of hairlike structures affected by the fluid in the canals based on the position of the body.
These serve to maintain balance and provide information on the position and attitude of the
body. The effect of motion on these structures can be immediately seen if the body rotates, as,
for example, on a merry-go-round. We temporarily loose, the ability to keep our balance.
The ear is a uniquely sensitive structure. It can sense pressures as low as 2  105 Pa (or
12
W/m2; that is on the order of one-billionth of the atmospheric pressure) and can
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function at levels 1013 times higher. That means the dynamic range is about 130 dB. The
nominal frequency response is between 20 Hz and 20,000 Hz, although most humans have a
much narrower range. But the ear is also very sensitive to pitch and can distinguish very small
changes in pitch and frequency. A 1 Hz difference between two sounds is easily detectable.
The hearing in humans is binaural and the brain uses that to detect the direction of sources of
sound. Many animals use the mechanical motion of the outer ear to accomplish the same
function, but much better than we do. It should be noted as well that many animals have
much more sensitive hearing than humans, with ears that respond to higher frequencies and
to a wider range of frequencies.

7.1

INTRODUCTION

The term acoustics can mean sound or the science of sound. It is in the latter sense that it
is used here. Acoustics thus covers all aspects of sound waves, from low-frequency
sound waves to ultrasound waves and beyond to what are simply called acoustic waves.
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