A novel parametric technique for the calibration of electroacoustic transducers

An identification approach is introduced for the parametric calibration of electroacoustic transducers. The method is based on the conventional substitution technique for hydrophone calibration and a parametric estimation technique for a linear system. The calibration is carried out in three main steps: (1) measurement of the combined transfer function of an electroacoustic transmitter-hydrophone system; (2) parametric estimation of the measured transfer functions with time delay, and calculation of the zero(s)/pole(s) of the system; and (3) common polynomial extraction and reconstruction of the transducer´s characteristics. The calibration approach has been performed for different types of transmitters and hydrophones in two frequency bands. This new approach will allow the simultaneous calibration of the transmitter and one or more hydrophones, and can be used to calibrate the amplitude characteristics as well as the phase characteristics of transducers