• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2003.06a
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• pp.1046-1050
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• 2003

In this paper, we describe study on the development or multi-path ultrasonic gas flowmeter using a transit time method. This system includes 5 pairs of ultrasonic transducers. ultrasonic signal processing unit using switch matrix method, computation algorithm of gas flow rate, spool piece type multi-path pipe unit. We have developed enhanced type of main ultrasonic signal processing unit using switch matrix method fer multi-path ultrasonic gas flowmeter. Also, we have developed the new transmitting ＆ receiving method of ultrasonic waves and the new signal processing algorithm for the computation of ultrasonic transit time from received ultrasonic waves. In this study, we have designed more compact signal processing unit compared with the conventional hardware system of multi-path ultrasonic gas flowmeter. We have confirmed its reliability for multi-path ultrasonic gas flowmeter through the laboratory test using calibration system. In the future. we will perform the field test for the developed system in the POSCO gas line.

• Journal of the Optical Society of Korea
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.323-327
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• 2013

A laser ultrasonic inspection system has the advantage of nondestructive testing. It is a non-contact mode using a laser interferometer to measure the vertical displacement of the surface of a material caused by the propagation of ultrasonic signals with the remote ultrasonic generated by laser. After raising the ultrasonic signal with a broadband frequency range using a pulsed laser beam, the laser beam is focused to a small point to measure the ultrasonic signal because it provides an excellent measurement resolution. In this paper, foreign materials are measured by a non-destructive and non-contact method using the laser ultrasonic inspection system. Mixed foreign material on the corroded part is assumed and the laser ultrasonic experiment is conducted. An ultrasonic wave is generated by pulse laser from the back of the specimen and an ultrasonic signal is acquired from the same location of the front side using continuous wave laser and Confocal Fabry-Perot Interferometer (CFPI). The characteristic of the ultrasonic signal of existing foreign material is analyzed and the location and size of foreign material is measured.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.192-198
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• 2013

Purpose: Methods for non-destructive estimation of product quality have been reported in various industrial fields, but the application of ultrasonic techniques for the agricultural products of potatoes, pears, apples, watermelons, kiwis and tomatoes etc. have been rarely reported since the application of a contact-type ultrasonic transducer in agricultural products is very difficult. Therefore, this study sought to determine the firmness of apples using non-contact ultrasonic techniques. Methods: For this experiment, an ultrasonic experimental tester using a non-contact ultrasonic transducer was created, and a signal processing program was used to analyze the acquired ultrasonic reflected signal. Also, a universal testing machine was used to measure firmness parameters of the apples such as bioyield strength, a firmness factor, after the ultrasonic tests had been performed. Results: Six distance correction factors were calculated to obtain consistent values of ultrasonic properties regardless of the distance between the transducer and the surface of the subject. We developed prediction models of the bioyield strength using the distance correction factors. Conclusions: The optimum prediction model of the bioyield strength of apples using a non-contact ultrasonic technique was a multiple regression model ($R^2=0.9402$).

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.13 no.10
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• pp.956-961
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• 2007

We propose a new distance measurement method and local positioning system for the autonomous mobile robots localization. The distance measurement method is able to measure long-range distances with a high accuracy by using ultrasonic sensors. The time of flight of the ultrasonic waves include various noises is calculated accurately by the proposed period detecting method. The proposed local positioning system is composed of four ultrasonic transmitters and one ultrasonic receiver. The ultrasonic transmitter and receiver are separated but they are synchronized by RF (Radio frequency) signal. The proposed system using ultrasonic waves is represented as USAT(Ultrasonic Satellite System). USAT is able to estimate the position using the least square estimation. The experimental results show that the proposed local positioning system enables to estimate the absolute position precisely.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.363-368
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• 1999

Ultrasonic pulse-echo methods measuring the transit time through specimens have been widely used in determination of ultrasonic velocity and thickness of specimens. Usually, to determine the velocity of the ultrasonic. the transit time of the ultrasonic pulse through specimen is measured by using the ultrasonic measuring equipment such as the oscilloscope including ultrasonic pulser/receiver and the thickness of the specimen is measured by using the length measuring instrument such as micrometer or vernier calipers etc., i. e. each parameter is measured by using each measuring method. In the case of the measuring the thickness of a specimen by using the ultrasonics. the ultrasonic equipments, which measure the thickness, such as the ultrasonic thickness gauge must be calibrated by using the reference block of which the ultrasonic velocity is known beforehand. In the present work, we proposed a new method for simultaneous measurement of ultrasonic velocity and thickness without reference blocks. Experimental results for several specimens show that proposed method have good agreements with those by traditional ultrasonic method.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.16 no.11
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• pp.1117-1124
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• 2010

This paper presents a foot movement tracking system using ultrasonic sensors and inertial sensors, where the position and velocity of foot are computed using inertial sensors and ultrasonic sensors mounted on a shoe. A foot movement can be estimated using an inertial navigation algorithm only; however, the error tends to increase due to biases of gyroscopes and accelerometers. To reduce the error, a localization system using ultrasonic sensors is additionally used. In the localization system using ultrasonic sensors, the position is continuously calculated in the absolute coordinate. An indirect Kalman filter is used to combine inertial sensors and ultrasonic sensors. Through experiments, it is shown that the proposed system can track a foot movement.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.145-151
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• 2003

A global ultrasonic sensor system for self-localization of a mobile robot is proposed in this paper. The global ultrasonic sensor system consists of three or more ultrasonic transmitters fixed at some positions in the world coordinate and receivers in the moving coordinate of a mobile robot. In this global sensor system it is easy to get state vector of the mobile robot in the world coordinate from the distance information between each ultrasonic transmitter and receiver. An extended kalman filter algorithm is used to process the noisy ultrasonic signal and to estimate the state vector. In case of using several independent ultrasonic transmitters, it is necessary to avoid the cross talk among the ultrasonic waves and to synchronize between each ultrasonic transmitter and receiver. The small sized radio frequency modules are adopted to solve the cross talk and the synchronization problem Computer simulation and experiments are carried out to verify the effectiveness of the proposed ultrasonic sensor system.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.225-234
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• 2009

Dredged silt from reservoirs in southern Taiwan was sintered to make lightweight aggregates (LWA), which were then used to produce lightweight aggregate concrete (LWAC).This study aimed to assess the compressive strength and homogeneity of LWAC using ultrasonic-echo sensing. Concrete specimens were prepared using aggregates of four different particle density, namely 800, 1100, 1300 and 2650 kg/$m^3$. The LWAC specimens were cylindrical and a square wall with core specimens drilled. Besides compressive strength test, ultrasonic-echo sensing was employed to examine the ultrasonic pulse velocity and homogeneity of the wall specimens and to explore the relationship between compressive strength and ultrasonic pulse velocity. Results show that LWA, due to its lower relative density, causes bloating, thus resulting in uneven distribution of aggregates and poor homogeneity. LWAC mixtures using LWA of particle density 1300 kg/$m^3$ show the most even distribution of aggregates and hence best homogeneity as well as highest compressive strength of 63.5 MPa. In addition, measurements obtained using ultrasonic-echo sensing and traditional ultrasonic method show little difference, supporting that ultrasonic-echo sensing can indeed perform non-destructive, fast and accurate assessment of LWAC homogeneity.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.301-310
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• 2020

The laser ultrasonic technique is gaining popularity for nondestructive evaluation (NDE) applications because it is a noncontact and couplant-free method and can inspect a target from a remote distance. For the conventional laser ultrasonic techniques, a pulsed laser is often used to generate broadband ultrasonic waves in a target structure. However, for crack detection using nonlinear ultrasonic modulation, it is necessary to generate narrowband ultrasonic waves. In this study, a pulsed laser is shaped into dual-line arrays using a spatial mask and used to simultaneously excite narrowband ultrasonic waves in the target structure at two distinct frequencies. Nonlinear ultrasonic modulation will occur between the two input frequencies when they encounter a fatigue crack existing in the target structure. Then, a nonlinear damage index (DI) is defined as a function of the magnitude of the modulation components and computed over the target structure by taking advantage of laser scanning. Finally, the fatigue crack is detected and localized by visualizing the nonlinear DI over the target structure. Numerical simulations and experimental tests are performed to examine the possibility of generating narrowband ultrasonic waves using the spatial mask. The performance of the proposed fatigue crack localization technique is validated by conducting an experiment with aluminum plates containing real fatigue cracks.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.9-15
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• 1992

Ultrasonic spectroscopy is likely to become a very powerful NDE method for detection of microfects and thickness measurement of thin film below the limit of ultrasonic distance resolution in the opaque materials, provides a useful information that cannot be obtained by a conventional ultrasonic measuring system. In this paper, we considered a thin film below the limit of ultrasonic distance resolution sandwitched between two substances as acoustical analysis model, demonstrated the usefulness of ultrasonic spectroscopic analysis technique using information of ultrasonic frequency for measurements of thin film thickness, regardless of interference phenomenon and phase reversion of ultrasonic waveform. By using frequency intervals(${\triangle}f$) of periodic minima from the ratio of reference power spectrum of reflective waveform obtained a sample to power spectrum of multiple reflective waves obtained interference phenomenon caused by ultrasonic waves reflected at the upper and lower surfaces of a thin layer, can measured even dimensions of interest are smaller than the ultrasonic wave length with simplicity and accuracy.