Towards a fish-inspired underwater hearing device

摘要

We draw inspiration from the fish "hearing" organ, the otolith, to create a portable engineering device that can augment a human diver's ability to hear underwater. The otolith is an inertial displacement sensor, consisting of a dense bony mass that acts as a reference to the surrounding sensory hair cells. The challenges in adapting the otolith into a hearing device are discussed. For our proposed sensor, we have explored the use of capacitive sensing for measuring displacement. A proof of concept prototype and a finite element model of the sensor are presented.