| Summary: | Conventional pistonic loudspeakers, by employing whole-body vibration of the diaphragm, can reproduce good quality sound at the low end of the audio spectrum. Flat panel speakers, on the other hand, are better at high frequency operation as the reproduced sound at high frequency from a flat panel speaker is not omni-directional as in the case of a conventional loudspeaker. Although flat-panel speakers are compact, small and have a better high frequency response the poor reproduction of bass sound limits its performance severely. In addition, the flat panel speakers have a poor impulse response. The reason for such poor bass and impulse response is that, unlike the whole body movement of a conventional loudspeaker diaphragm, different parts of the panel in a flat panel loudspeaker vibrates independently. A novel loudspeaker has been successfully designed, developed and operated using miniature electromagnetic transducers in a matrix array configuration. In this device, the whole body vibration of the panel reduces the poor bass and impulse response associated with present flat panel speakers. The multi-actuator approach combines the advantages of conventional whole body motion with that of modern flat panel speakers. An innovative miniature electromagnetic transducer for the proposed loudspeaker has been designed, modelled and built for analysis. Frequency Responses show that this novel transducer is suitable for loudspeaker application because of its steady and consistent output over the whole audible frequency range and for various excitation currents. Measurements on various device configurations of this novel miniature electromagnetic transducer show that a moving coil transducer configuration having a magnetic diaphragm is best suited for loudspeaker applications. Finite element modeling has been used to examine single transducer operation and the magnetic interaction between neighbouring transducers in a matrix array format. Experimental results show the correct positioning of the transducers in a matrix configuration reduces the effects of interferences on the magnetic transducers. In addition, experimental results from the pressure response measurement show an improvement in bass response for the longer array speaker.
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