A polymer-based capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducer (CMUT) is developed to measure surface roughness. The transducer is designed with two groups in a ratio of two to one. By using air-coupled ultrasound, the transducer can evaluate surface roughness in five modes: full transmission/ full reception, majority transmission/ majority reception, majority transmission/ minority reception, minority transmission/ majority reception, and minority transmission/ minority reception. Experimentation shows the CMUT can identify the surface roughness using a sample of sandpaper with surface roughness Rrms ranging from 11.4μm to 179.8μm. The results indicate that the full transmission/ full reception mode has maximum signal output and the minority transmission/ majority reception mode can obtain a good signal output with a better energy efficiency rating.
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