Acoustic biomimetics - The investigation of mechanisms of sound production, detection and manipulation for new acoustic applications

The aim of this project is to investigate the mechanisms of sound production, detection and manipulation in nature and to find methods to mimic these for new acoustic applications. Our current methods of sound production are limited, both in range and efficiency, and have remained unchanged for decades. Similarly, only a limited range of microphone technologies exist. Nature has created a wide variety of ways to produce and detect sound, from the infrasonic to ultrasonic ends of the spectrum. For instance, sonic defence mechanisms have been observed in species of caterpillar [1] and moth [2], in the latter case a mechanism of jamming bat echolocation. However, only recently have research groups started to look at bio-inspired acoustic technologies (e.g. [1]).

This is an exploratory, experimental project to take recent discoveries in the natural world and to reproduce them in the laboratory. The focus will be on ultrasound production and manipulation with links to imaging and defence applications. This would include resonant metamaterial structures to amplify and modify the sound, as observed recently in bush-crickets [4]. Modelling will help to guide the experimental work. Collaborations will be built with the Exeter Living Systems Institute so that physical exploration of the sound can run in parallel with biological field studies. The project will benefit enormously from the Metamaterials CDT as ideas from optics and optical biomimetics can be adapted to the acoustic environment.

[1] V. L. Bura et al. ’A Comparative Analysis of Sonic Defences in Bombycoidea Caterpillars’, Scientific Reports 6, 31469, doi:10.1038/srep31469 (2016)
[2] A. Y. Kawahara and J. R. Barber, ’Tempo and mode of antibat ultrasound production and sonar jamming in the diverse hawkmoth radiation’, PNAS 112, 6407, doi:10.1073/pnas.1416679112 (2015)
[3] Y. Pailhas et al. ’Analysis and classification of broadband echoes using bio-inspired dolphin pulses’, J. Acoustic Society America 127, 3809, doi:10.1121/1.3372754 (2010)
[4] T. Jonsson et al. ’Chamber music: an unusual Helmholtz resonator for song amplification in a Neotropical bush-cricket (Orthoptera, Tettigoniidae)’ J. Exp. Bio. 220, 2900, doi:10.1242/jeb.160234 (2017)