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Purpose: Human-induced marine environmental noise, such as commercial shipping and seismic exploration, is concentrated in the low-frequency range. Meanwhile, low-frequency sound signals can achieve long-distance propagation in water. To meet the requirements of long-distance underwater detection and communication, this paper aims to propose an micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) flexible conformal hydrophone for low-frequency underwater acoustic signals. The substrate of the proposed hydrophone is polyimide, with silicon as the piezoresistive unit. Design/methodology/approach: This paper proposes a MEMS heterojunction integration process for preparing flexible conformal hydrophones. In addition, sensors prepared based on this process are non-contact flexible sensors that can detect weak signals or small deformations. Findings: The experimental results indicate that making devices with this process cannot only achieve heterogeneous integration of silicon film, metal wire and polyimide, but also allow for customized positions of the silicon film as needed. The success rate of silicon film transfer printing is over 95%. When a stress of 1 Pa is applied on the x-axis or y-axis, the maximum stress on Si as a pie-zoresistive material is above, and the average stress on the Si film is around. Originality/value: The flexible conformal vector hydrophone prepared by heterogeneous integration technology provides ideas for underwater acoustic communication and signal acquisition of biomimetic flexible robotic fish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• MEMS Co-vibration Combined Hydrophone has excellent cosine pointing and high sensitivity. The precise positioning of weak signals can be achieved. • MEMS microphones are used as scalar channels to avoid the problem of ambiguity of sound positioning on the port and starboard of MEMS Co-vibration Combined Hydrophone. • MEMS Co-vibration Combined Hydrophone has the advantages of low power consumption and low cost. • The microphone is used as a scalar channel to reduce the volume of the MEMS Co-vibration Combined Hydrophone and enhance the concealment of the UUV operation. This paper proposes a MEMS co-vibration combined hydrophone (CCH) to position the weak acoustic source of small-volume UUV acoustic self-guided cabins. With an external diameter of 36 mm, it adopts the MEMS triaxial accelerometer to form the vector channel and the MEMS capacitive omnidirectional microphone to form the scalar channel. This paper first analyzes the acoustic receiving model of an elastic-free sphere in water, designs a MEMS co-vibration combined hydrophone packaging and then simulates its acoustic performance. The average density of the encapsulated CCH is 1.01 g/cm3. The vector channel bandwidth is 20 Hz−1,000 Hz, and the sensitivity is −173 dB @ 1 kHz (re 1 V/ μPa) with good cosine directivity. The scalar channel sensitivity is −171 dB @ 1 kHz (re 1 V/ μPa) with omnidirectional directivity. The error of the orientation test in the standing wave tube is less than 1 degree. The sound source-level test results are mostly consistent with the theoretical calculation based on the actual distance. The above results indicate that the hydrophone can be mounted to UUV to perform sound source detection, which can meet the need for precise positioning, and has a specific application value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]