Widening the directivity patterns of ultrasound transducers using 3-D-printed baffles

Modern localization and/or mapping systems based on ultrasound use multiple types of ultrasound transducers. These transducers are used to scan the environment and create situational awareness so that obstacles are spotted and collisions may be prevented. Most commercially available transducers however have a field of view (FOV) that is too limited for these applications. As a result of this, multiple transducers are necessary to get a decent perceptional coverage of the environment. The signals coming from the different transducers can cause unnecessary complications. In this paper, we propose a method for widening the FOV of off-the-shelf ultrasonic transducers by creating a baffle that fits on these transducers. This will significantly improve the process of mapping the environment for a wide range of applications, such as obstacle avoidance and SLAM. We provide strong experimental evidence for the widening of the directivity patterns by means of various 3-D-printed baffles.