Noise suppression and signal enhancement system for ultrasonic non-destructive inspection/evaluation
AssigneeSLX, Inc.
InventorsAnthony N. Mucciardi, Thomas J. Tilden
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The Noise Suppressor II provides procedures and add-on units, which are attached to standard analog or digital ultrasonic flaw detector instruments for either suppressing noise spikes that clutter the flaw detector screens, or other undesired signals, or enhancing weak, barely detectable signals. The add-on units may do both simultaneously as well. Each unit includes an adjustable filter so that a user may tune the filter bandwidth to a specific range within the overall transducer band that coincides with the signal to be either suppressed or enhanced.
Claims31
Noise suppressing, signal enhancing, ultrasonic non-destructive inspection apparatus comprising an ultrasonic signal source and a return signal analyzer, a transducer connected to the source and positioned on an article being inspected, one or more receiving transducers positioned on the article being inspected, a noise suppressor and amplifier unit having an input connected to the receiving transducers, a first pre-amplifier stage connected to the input, a fixed filter connected to the first pre-amplifier, a second, adjustable pre-amplifier stage connected to the fixed filter, a filter assembly having an input connected to the second pre-amplifier stage, the filter assembly having an output for connecting to the return signal analyzer.
Module apparatus for use in an ultrasonic inspection system comprising a housing having a module input and a module output mounted thereon, a pre-amplifier connected to the module input, a fixed bandwidth filter connected to the pre-amplifier, an adjustable filter assembly having an input connected to an output of the pre-amplifier and having an output connected to the module output and switches connected to the filter assembly for selecting bandwidths and center frequencies of the filter assembly.
A noise suppressor and signal enhancement ultrasonic module apparatus for connecting between a return signal receiving transducer and a signal analyzer comprising a module, an input on the module for connecting to the receiving transducer and an output on the module for connecting to the analyzer, a first pre-amplifier stage connected to the input, a fixed bandwidth filter connected to the first pre-amplifier stage, a second, adjustable pre-amplifier stage connected to the bandwidth filter, and an assembly of filters connectable individually to the second pre-amplifier stage and connectable to the output.
A method of selectively enhancing and suppressing return signals from one or more ultrasonic inspection transducers comprising switching the return signals between a bypass and an amplifier, pre-amplifying the signals, removing out-of-band signals, passing in-band signals to an adjustable amplifier, amplifying and controlling amplification of the in-band signals, providing a filter assembly, passing the in-band amplified signals to the filter assembly, selecting filters in the assembly, selecting bandwidths of the selected filters in the assembly, selecting center frequencies of the filters and producing an output at the selected frequency and bandwidth with signal enhancing and noise suppression.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.