The existing ultrasonic thickness measurement systems require high sampling frequencies for echo signal acquisition, leading to complex circuit designs and high costs. Moreover, extracting the characteristics of ultrasonic echo signals for accurate thickness measurement poses significant challenges. To address these issues, this paper proposes a method that utilizes conventional sampling frequencies to acquire high-frequency ultrasonic echo signals, overcoming the limitations of high-frequency data acquisition imposed by the Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem. By employing an improved sampling reconstruction technique, the multi-cycle sampling signals are reconstructed and rearranged within a single cycle, effectively increasing the equivalent sampling frequency. Additionally, a combination of coarse estimation using fast Fourier transform (FFT) and precise phase extraction using the moving sine fitting algorithm is proposed for accurate thickness measurement, resolving the limitations of common thickness measurement methods such as peak detection, envelope detection, and Hilbert autocorrelation in terms of low measurement accuracy. Experimental results obtained from thickness measurements on 45 steel ultrasonic test blocks within the range of 3 mm to 20 mm indicate a measurement error of ±0.01 mm, while for thicknesses ranging from 1 mm to 50 mm, the measurement error is ±0.05 mm.
16 December 2024 in Optics and Lasers in Engineering
A new method of laser beam shaping with hybrid gratings is presented. The hybrid gratings consist of a blazed grating and a gradient binary grating. The blazed grating is used to separate the incident Gaussian beam into zero order and nonzero diffraction orders. A filter is used to block the nonzero order beams and obtain the zero orders with the desired shape. The gradient binary grating is used to improve the energy distribution of the inside area of the geometric shape. A phase hologram designed with the desired shape and hybrid gratings, is loaded on a phase-only spatial light modulation to achieve arbitrary geometric flattop shapes with high uniformity. Squared and hexagonal shaping experiments demonstrated that the presented method can convert a Gaussian beam into a flattop beam with steepness edge and high uniformity. Experimental results show that the beam non-uniformity is less than 0.037.
The optimization of imaging accuracy and speed is a crucial issue in the development of computer-generated holograms (CGH) for three-dimensional (3D) displays. This paper proposes an optimized iterative algorithm based on the angular spectrum method (ASM) to achieve high-quality holographic imaging across multiple planes. To effectively utilize spatial resources for multi-image reconstruction and mitigate the speckle noise caused by the overlapping of target images, constraint factors are introduced between different layers within the same region. The seeking rule of the constraint factor is also analyzed. By utilizing both constraint factors and variable factors, the presented method is able to calculate phase holograms for target figure imaging at four different planes. Simulation and experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method effectively improves the overall quality of the different planes, thus holding great potential for wide-ranging applications in the field of holography.
In impedance spectroscopy measurement with traditional voltammetry, the measurement accuracy will be varied due to the measured impedance, which is changed with frequencies and does not match the reference resistor. This paper proposes a portable impedance spectroscopy measurement method that the reference resistor match measured impedance rapidly and adaptively. The appropriate reference resistor is selected by the output-input amplitude ratio determination algorithm. The symmetric measurement circuit is designed to reduce the impact of electromagnetic interference, especially in high impedance measurements. Both theoretical and experimental analyses show the effectiveness of this method, the RMSEs of relative errors of the measurement results are under 2.5%, and the equivalent circuit parameters of the measured impedance can be accurately fitted.
1 October 2023 in Review of Scientific Instruments
In an auto-balancing bridge for high impedance measurements, an operational amplifier (Op-Amp) is used to follow the intermediate potential. However, the input impedance of the Op-Amp introduces significant effects in high impedance measurements. This paper proposes a two-step excitation method (TSEM) and an incremental iterative method (IIM). The TSEM determines the magnitude of the Op-Amp input impedance and the initial value of the device under test. The IIM utilizes the TSEM results as initial conditions to quickly bring the bridge to equilibrium. To overcome the distortion issues associated with small amplitude excitation signals generated by the DAC under low resolution conditions, a programmable gain amplifier is designed. Additionally, a half-cycle difference algorithm is developed prior to the three-parameter sine fit to mitigate low-frequency direct-current drift caused by power frequency, thus improving measurement accuracy. Experimental results demonstrate that when the reference impedance is set to 1 MΩ, impedance measurements ranging from 1 kΩ to 100 MΩ can be achieved within the frequency range of 1 to 100 kHz. The precision evaluation reveals a relative standard deviation (RSD) of the modulus better than 0.384% and a standard deviation (SD) of the phase angle better than 3.49 mrad; especially for the impedance under test of 1 MΩ, the RSD is better than 0.006% and the SD is better than 0.1 mrad.