They create a thin speaker, with high quality sound and very low consumption
MIT engineers surprise the world again with the creation of a speaker system characterized by being as thin as paper, heavy as a penny, and capable of turning any surface into an active, high-quality, low-distortion audio source, consuming a fraction of what a conventional speaker with a similar quality would consume.
To reach this achievement used a “deceptively simple” manufacturing technique based on three simple steps that would even make it possible to wallpaper a simple room with this solution or inside a car.
Among the possible uses they speak of the ability to provide active noise cancellation for noisy environments such as aircraft cabins, by generating the same noise but in opposite phase, canceling each other out, although they also used in entertainment to generate a surround sound system in theaters and movie theatersbut also for smart device applications that use a fairly limited battery life, taking advantage of the fact that they require negligible energy consumption.
revolutionizing the speaker segment
On this point, they establish the following comparison:
The energy efficient device only requires around 100 milliwatts of power per square meter of speaker area. By contrast, an average home speaker might draw more than 1 watt of power to generate similar sound pressure at a comparable distance.
But beyond listening to high-quality sound on any surface, he also points out that this technology It could also generate ultrasound to be used in tasks such as locating a person in a room in a similar way to bats and the use of echolocation, even enabling monitoring while the person is in motion.
Its possible use within light pattern creation systems in future display technologies is also considered, taking advantage of the covering of the vibrating domes of the film with a reflective surface, or also to be immersed in liquids to favor aspects such as a novel method of chemical processing, for example.
In any case, this invention it will become the alternative to conventional loudspeakers based on a system consisting of the passage of electricity through coilswhere basically it is necessary to have thin film of a piezoelectric material that is capable of moving when a voltage is applied to itproducing the sound through the air generated by said movement on a surface.
The interesting thing will be to know if we will ever see the use of these alternative speakers to the conventional ones commercially for use in our daily activities.
All the details: MIT News
