Acoustic reflectometry for an in vitro model of a human upper airway using sinusoidal wave packets and the Ware-Aki...

Acoustic reflectometry is often used for estimating the cross-sectional area of a cylindrical cavity when used in combination with an acoustic pulse. The objective of this research is to sweep a spectral bandwidth from 50 Hz to 10 kHz at steps of 50 Hz, with Gaussian sinusoidal wave packets, and to apply the Ware-Aki algorithm. In practice, not only it is difficult to generate a broad spectral bandwidth, but also robust methods are required to compensate for attenuation in the propagating wave and to eliminate a DC offset component generated in its impulse response. This paper looks at using numerical techniques to compute the impulse response and estimate the cross-sectional area as a function of an increment in the frequency response. Preliminary results show that both simulated and reconstructed cross-sectional areas for an in vitro model of a human upper airway may be estimated with an appropriate resolution, suggesting that this method is suitable for such applications.