Research on Self-Noise Suppression of Marine Acoustic Sensor Arrays

Abstract

Marine acoustic sensors can detect underwater acoustic information. The cilium micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) vector hydrophone (CVH) is the core component of the ocean noise measurement system. The performance of the CVH, especially its self-noise, has received widespread attention. In this paper, we propose a solution to improve the performance of the CVH using an array to detect environmental noise in a complex deep-water environment. We analyzed the self-noise source of the CVH and the noise suppression principle of the four-unit MEMS vector hydrophone (FUVH). In addition, we designed the pre-circuit of the FUVH, completed the cross-beam structure by the MEMS processing, and packaged a FUVH. Then, we tested the performance of a packaged FUVH. Finally, the experimental results show that the FUVH reduces the self-noise voltage power spectrum by 6 dB compared to the CVH structure. The FUVH achieves better linearity at low frequencies without reducing the bandwidth and sensitivity. In addition, it minimizes the equivalent self-noise levels by 5.18 and 5.14 dB in the X and Y channels, respectively.