2D phononic-crystal Luneburg lens for all-angle underwater sound localization

Phononic crystals are well known for acoustic wave manipulation which may have potential application in an underwater acoustic detection system. In this work, we design and simulate a two-dimensional Luneburg lens based on gradient-index (GRIN) phononic crystal that is composed of PLA-Air inclusion, and a novel application of GRIN phononic crystals is proposed to sound localization. The Luneburg lens has a broadband working range, from 1500 Hz to 7500 Hz, for acoustic wave focusing with sensitive directivity and signal-to-noise improvement. By searching maximum wave intensity’s position of the focusing beam, the propagating direction of an unknown sound wave can be directly recognized covering 360°. Besides, we redesign the conventional square-lattice Luneburg lenses using annular lattices for better performance. The annular-lattice Luneburg lens overcomes the weakness of configuration defect due to the square lattice. The numerical results show that the redesign Luneburg lenses have high accuracy for distance measurement from 5 m to 35 m through the triangulation location. In a word, this work tries to explore a novel application of phononic crystals in underwater acoustic positioning and navigation technology.