Inspection system and method using eddy current sensor array
AssigneeGeneral Electric Company
InventorsManoj Kumar KM, Aparna Chakrapani Sheila Vadde, Deepak Trivedi, Prasad Thapa, Soumyakanti Maiti
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Abstract
A sensor system may include a sensor array comprising a plurality of eddy current sensor elements, the sensor array having a contact side and a mounting side opposite the contact side. The sensor system may include a sensor mount coupled to the mounting side of the sensor array. The sensor system may include a biasing element configured to bias the contact side of the sensor array against an inspected surface of a component and secure the sensor array to the component while the inspected surface moves relative to the sensor array during data capture.
Claims20
A sensor system for component inspection, the sensor system comprising:
- a sensor array comprising a plurality of eddy current sensor elements, the sensor array having a contact side and a mounting side opposite the contact side;
- a sensor mount coupled to the mounting side of the sensor array;
- and
- a biasing element configured to bias the contact side of the sensor array against an inspected surface of a component and secure the sensor array to the component while the inspected surface moves relative to the sensor array during data capture.
A non-transitory computer-readable medium programmed with computer-executable instructions for operating a computing device including a control circuit that includes a processor, and a memory accessible by the processor and bearing instructions executable by the processor, wherein the instructions, when executed by the processor, implement a method for component inspection, the method comprising:
- capturing raw sensor data with an eddy current array probe (ECAP) while the ECAP is in relative motion with an inspected surface of a component;
- combining, at the processor, the raw sensor data from a plurality of sensor elements in the ECAP to obtain compensated sensor data;
- applying singular value decomposition to the compensated sensor data to obtain left and right singular vectors and singular values;
- removing noise subspace from the singular values and grouping remaining singular values into one or more signal subspace groups;
- reconstructing conditioned sensor data by combining the singular values in the one or more signal subspace groups with the left and right singular vectors;
- and
- identifying a defect on the inspected surface based on the conditioned sensor data.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.