US 2003/0191388 A1Published application

Ultrasonic probe, in particular for manual inspections

AssigneeAgfa NDT GmbH

InventorsPaul Buschke, Wolf Kleinert, Horst Guenter Thum

Life of this patent

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Abstract

The invention relates to an ultrasonic probe comprising: a housing (20), which accommodates an ultrasonic transducer and has a contact surface for making contact with the surface (28) of a body (30) to be inspected; at least one digital camera (36), which is allocated to the housing (20) and which is aligned in such a way that it registers the surface (28) of the body (30) and supplies a respective electronic image of sub-sections of the surface (28) of the body (30) at intervals; a circuit for image processing (40), which has an image memory (42) for at least one electronic image that has been registered by tile digital camera (36). Said circuit also comprises a comparator (44) that compares two electronic images of the body (30) to be inspected, registered by the digital camera (36) at different times and that determines the displacement of the housing (20) in relation to the surface (28); and a displacement memory (46), which contains the displacement of the housing (20) and the current position or the housing (20) in relation to the original location (48).

Claims7

Dependent claims

An ultrasonic probe, more specifically for manual inspection

with a housing (20) that accommodates an ultrasonic crystal and has a contact surface for contact with the surface (28) of a body (30) to be inspected,
with at least one digital camera (36) that is assigned to said housing (20), that is preferably accommodated in the housing (20), that is oriented in such a manner that it acquires the surface (28) of the body (30) and periodically delivers an electronic image of respective portions of the surface (28) of the body (30),
with a circuit for image processing (40) that has an image memory (42) for at least one electronic image acquired by the digital camera (36), that has a comparator (44) which compares two electronic images, acquired at different times by the digital camera (36), of overlapping portions of the surface (28) of the body (30) to be inspected and determines therefrom the displacement of the housing (20) relative to the surface (28), which is then output, and
with a motion memory (46) that stores the displacement of the housing (20) starting from a location (48) at the beginning of the measurement and contains the actual position of the housing (20) with respect to said location (48).

1 more element

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 10/380,306Filed 13 Mar 2003
Priority: DE 100 58 174.922 Nov 2000
Published: 9 Oct 2003
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification5 codes

G01N 29/265
Arrangements for orientation or scanning by relative movement of the head and the sensor: by moving the sensor relative to a stationary material
G01N 29/225
Details , e.g. general constructional or apparatus details: supports, positioning or alignment in moving situation
G01N 2291/106
Number of transducers: one or more transducer arrays
G01N 2291/2632
Surfaces: flat