Phase and amplitude gradient method for the estimation of acoustic vector quantities

Abstract

An alternative pressure-sensor based method for estimating the acoustic intensity, the phase and amplitude gradient estimation (PAGE) method, is presented. This method uses the same hardware as the standard finite-difference method, but does not suffer from the frequency-dependent bias inherent to the finite-difference method. A detailed derivation of the PAGE method and the finite-difference method is presented. Both methods are then compared using simple acoustic fields. The ability to unwrap the phase component of the PAGE method is discussed, which leads to accurate intensity estimates above previous frequency limits. The uncertainties associated with both methods of estimation are presented. It is shown that the PAGE method provides more accurate intensity estimates over a larger frequency bandwidth.