This document pertains generally, but not by way of limitation, to non-destructive evaluation, and more particularly, to apparatus and techniques for providing a modularized system topology for performing acoustic inspection, such as to provide processing of acoustic inspection data remotely from a device used for acoustic signal acquisition.
Various inspection techniques can be used to image or otherwise analyze structures without damaging such structures. For example, one or more of x-ray inspection, eddy current inspection, or acoustic (e.g., ultrasonic) inspection can be used to obtain data for imaging of features on or within a test specimen. For example, acoustic imaging can be performed using an array of ultrasound transducer elements, such as to image a region of interest within a test specimen. Different imaging modes can be used to present received acoustic signals that have been scattered or reflected by structures on or within the test specimen.
For example, an amplitude or “A-scan” representation can include generating a plot or other display of a received ultrasound signal magnitude versus time or depth, such as along a linear beam axis or ray traversing the test specimen. Beamforming can be performed using coherent excitation of ultrasound transducers to provide a desired beam angle and focal location. For example, coherent excitation can include applying specified delay values (or phase shift) to pulses for transmission by individual array elements (or apertures defined thereby) to establish one or more desired beam angle and focal location. Alternatively, or in addition, beamforming can be performed in reception such as by summing received acoustic echo signals in manner where signals received from individual array elements are delayed (or phase shifted) to provide one or more of a desired beam angle and focal location.
Acoustic testing, such as ultrasound-based inspection, can include focusing or beam-forming techniques to aid in construction of data plots or images representing a region of interest within the test specimen. Use of an array of ultrasound transducer elements can include use of a phased-array beamforming approach and can be referred to as Phased Array Ultrasound Testing (PAUT). For example, a delay-and-sum beamforming technique can be used such as including coherently summing time-domain representations of received acoustic signals from respective transducer elements or apertures. In another approach, a Total Focusing Method (TFM) technique can be used where one or more elements in an array (or apertures defined by such elements) are used to transmit an acoustic pulse and other elements are used to receive scattered or reflected acoustic energy, and a matrix is constructed of time-series (e.g., A-Scan) representations corresponding to a sequence of transmit-receive cycles in which the transmissions are occurring from different elements (or corresponding apertures) in the array. Such a TFM approach where A-scan data is obtained for each element in an array (or each defined aperture) can be referred to as a “full matrix capture” (FMC) technique.
Capturing time-series A-scan data either for PAUT or TFM applications can involve generating considerable volumes of data. For example, digitization of A-scan time-series data can be performed locally by a test instrument having an analog-front-end and analog-to-digital converter physically cabled to a transducer probe assembly. A corresponding digitized amplitude resolution (e.g., 8-bit or 12-bit resolution) and time resolution (e.g., corresponding to a sample rate in excess of tens or hundreds of megasamples per second) can result in gigabits of time-series data for each received A-scan record for later processing as full-bandwidth and full-resolution analytic representations of such signals. Such volumes of data may be cumbersome to transfer between devices or to store. Accordingly, image generation or other analysis would generally be performed locally by the test instrument, and the “full” resolution time-series data would be discarded. Such a volume of data may also practically limit a count of transducer elements or aperture elements used for performing acoustic testing.
To address such technical challenges, the present inventors have recognized, among other things, that an encoding scheme can be used to compress a volume of time-series data acquired from a test probe assembly. For example, a phase-based approach can be used for one or more of acquisition, storage, or subsequent analysis (e.g., A-scan reconstruction or TFM imaging) in support of acoustic inspection. In one approach, a binarization or other quantization technique can be used compress a data volume associated with time-series signal (e.g., A-scan) acquisition. A representation of phase information from the time-series signal can be generated, such as by processing the binarized or otherwise quantized time-series signal. A compressed representation of the time-series can be further manipulated, such as stored or transferred for other analysis.
As an illustration, temporal data indicative of edge transitions within the binarized data can be one or more of stored or transmitted for later use in construction of a time-domain representation of an instantaneous phase signal corresponding to an instantaneous phase of the original time-series A-scan signal. Such temporal data indicative of edge transitions can represent a compressed (e.g., lesser data volume) representation of the acquired time-series data as compared to a full analytic representation. Such reduction in data transfer burden can facilitate a variety of enhancements to acoustic testing protocols and apparatus, such as, for example, facilitating one or more of simplified acoustic transceiver front-end configuration (e.g., relaxing specifications relating to analog-to-digital conversion, particularly amplitude resolution), higher channel counts, faster acquisition, or novel inspection system topologies, as compared to other approaches. As an illustration, if a specified data transfer rate (e.g., “bandwidth”) is available, use of phase-based techniques can allow a higher channel count or acquisition rate (e.g., “frame rate”) for the same bandwidth as compared to a generally-available PAUT or TFM approach involving full analytic signals including amplitude and phase information.
The inventors have also recognized, among other things, that use of a compressed representation of acquired acoustic echo data can facilitate use of a modularized system topology, such as providing for capability of remote (e.g., network-attached compute facility) processing of received acoustic inspection time-series data. Imaging or other analysis data can be transmitted from a compute facility to another client, such as for presentation to a user. In another approach, a probe assembly can include an analog front end (AFE) and transceiver, and another device can receive acoustic echo signal data such as for compression, storage, or image construction. For example, a mobile device, tablet, or other general-purpose device can be used to perform image construction or analysis based on received echo data wireless transferred from an acoustic probe. Other topologies are also possible, such as facilitating remote control or monitoring of acoustic inspection equipment, such as without requiring a physical presence of a human operator.
In an example, such as in a non-destructive test application, a compressed representation of an acoustic echo signal acquired by a non-destructive test (NDT) probe assembly can be received, such as via a network. The compressed representation can include data indicative of changes in phase values of the acoustic echo signal. Using the compressed representation, a time-domain representation of an instantaneous phase signal can be constructed from the compressed representation. The constructed instantaneous phase signal can be used in constructing at least one of an uncompressed acoustic echo signal representation or an image.
As an illustration, amplitude values of sampled acoustic echo signals can be suppressed in the compressed representation, reducing data volume associated with transmitting a representation of the acquired acoustic echo signal as compared to transmitting all amplitude values in an acquired time series. In an example, the acoustic echo signal can be received from a transducer included as a portion of a non-destructive test (NDT) probe assembly, such as where the NDT probe assembly or circuitry coupled thereto forms a discrete-time representation of the acoustic echo signal, encodes the discrete-time representation for transmission, and wirelessly transmits the encoded representation. In an example, establishing the compressed representation comprises binarizing the acoustic echo signal and establishing data indicative of time indices of edge transitions in quantized representations of the received acoustic echo signal. The encoded representation mention above can include the compressed representation (e.g., the NDT probe assembly or circuitry coupled there can provide the binarization and establishing of data indicative of edge transitions).
This summary is intended to provide an overview of subject matter of the present patent application. It is not intended to provide an exclusive or exhaustive explanation of the invention. The detailed description is included to provide further information about the present patent application.
The patent or application file contains at least one drawing executed in color. Copies of this patent or patent application publication with color drawing(s) will be provided by the Office upon request and payment of the necessary fee.
In the drawings, which are not necessarily drawn to scale, like numerals may describe similar components in different views. Like numerals having different letter suffixes may represent different instances of similar components. The drawings illustrate generally, by way of example, but not by way of limitation, various embodiments discussed in the present document.
The present subject matter concerns apparatus and techniques that facilitate high-resolution acoustic inspection, such as by enhancing one or more of an element count, a frame rate, a grid resolution, or other parameters relating to processing of acoustic echo signals. For example, A-scan reconstruction or Total Focusing Method techniques can be performed using a phase-based approach as shown and described herein. Such an approach enables encoding of phase information in a compressed manner. Such encoding can be used to provide a small-footprint modularized probe assembly, where small-footprint refers to the probe not requiring an on-board or nearby processing facility to perform imaging computation. The techniques for encoding shown and described herein also facilitate transmission, storage, and remote processing of time-series acoustic echo signal data by dramatically reducing a data volume associated with individual echo signals. Use of the techniques described herein enable novel inspection system topologies, such as modularized where a probe assembly is wireless communicatively coupled with other devices such as one or more of a network-accessible compute facility or nearby mobile device.
Generally, capturing time-series A-scan data for PAUT or TFM applications can involve generating considerable volumes of data. A phase-based approach can be used for one or more of acquisition, storage, or subsequent analysis (e.g., A-scan reconstruction or imaging) in support of acoustic inspection. Use of a phase-based approach can address other technical challenges as well. For example, a challenge can exist because pulse echo amplitude data obtained from an ultrasound transducer array can be affected by various factors, such as one or more of diffraction effects (from transmitter element, receiver element, or scatterers), transmission/reflection at interfaces having differing constitutive characteristics, geometric attenuation of signals, and absorption or frictional losses, as illustrative examples. The factors mentioned above affect amplitude and are generally compensated by empirical measurements (e.g., using Time Correction Gain (TCG) and Angle Correction Gain (ACG), for example). Accordingly, if an analytical notation is used to refer to the received signal summation, the compensations mentioned above (TCG and ACG) affect the individual element amplitude terms (“aqp(r)”), for a Q×P element array, where q and p represent element indices:
A(r)=ΣqpQPaqp(r)eiθ
In EQN. 1, A(r) represents a pixel or voxel value for a spatial location described by the vector, “r”, and aqp represents an amplitude component for a corresponding transmit-receive pair at element indices q and p. Accordingly, to remedy such challenges, such amplitude terms can be factored out of the summation process, leaving the phase-related coherence terms to be summed (“eiθ
{tilde over (A)}(r)=ΣqpQPeiθ
By use of such factorization, factors influencing amplitude are suppressed (because such factors may influence terms that have now been moved “outside” the summation), while the phase-related terms (e.g., associated with scatterers or other features of interest) remain. As mentioned elsewhere herein, individual time-domain representations of instantaneous phase signals can be acquired, compressed, and reconstructed. Acquisition can be performed using a front-end configuration having a reduced dynamic range as compared to existing approaches that use amplitude and phase information. A compressed representation of the instantaneous received phase signals allows efficient transfer of acquired time-domain data between devices or functional blocks within a testing or imaging system, including wired or wireless transmission of such data to other devices for further analysis, processing, or storage. Re-construction of representations of instantaneous phase signals corresponding to acquired echo signals facilitates A-scan reconstruction or imaging (e.g., TFM imaging).
A modular probe assembly 150 configuration can be used, such as to allow a test instrument 140 to be used with various different probe assemblies 150. Generally, the transducer array 152 includes piezoelectric transducers, such as can be acoustically coupled to a target 158 (e.g., a test specimen or “object-under-test”) through a coupling medium 156. The coupling medium can include a fluid or gel or a solid membrane (e.g., an elastomer or other polymer material), or a combination of fluid, gel, or solid structures. For example, an acoustic transducer assembly can include a transducer array coupled to a wedge structure comprising a rigid thermoset polymer having known acoustic propagation characteristics (for example, Rexolite® available from C-Lec Plastics Inc.), and water can be injected between the wedge and the structure under test as a coupling medium 156 during testing.
The test instrument 140 can include digital and analog circuitry, such as a front-end-circuit 122 including one or more transmit signal chains, receive signal chains, or switching circuitry (e.g., transmit/receive switching circuitry). The transmit signal chain can include amplifier and filter circuitry, such as to provide transmit pulses for delivery through an interconnect 130 to a probe assembly 150 for insonification of the target 158, such as to image or otherwise detect a flaw 160 on or within the target 158 structure by receiving scattered or reflected acoustic energy elicited in response to the insonification.
While
The receive signal chain of the front-end circuit 122 can include one or more filters or amplifier circuits, along with an analog-to-digital conversion facility, such as to digitize echo signals received using the probe assembly 150. Digitization can be performed coherently, such as to provide multiple channels of digitized data aligned or referenced to each other in time or phase. The front-end circuit can be coupled to and controlled by one or more processor circuits, such as a processor circuit 102 included as a portion of the test instrument 140. The processor circuit can be coupled to a memory circuit, such as to execute instructions that cause the test instrument 140 to perform one or more of acoustic transmission, acoustic acquisition, processing, or storage of data relating to an acoustic inspection, or to otherwise perform techniques as shown and described herein. The test instrument 140 can be communicatively coupled to other portions of the system 100, such as using a wired or wireless communication interface 120.
For example, performance of one or more techniques as shown and described herein can be accomplished on-board the test instrument 140 or using other processing or storage facilities such as using a compute facility 108 or a general-purpose computing device such as a laptop 132, tablet, smart-phone, desktop computer, or the like. For example, processing tasks that would be undesirably slow if performed on-board the test instrument 140 or beyond the capabilities of the test instrument 140 can be performed remotely (e.g., on a separate system), such as in response to a request from the test instrument 140. Similarly, storage of imaging data or intermediate data such as A-scan matrices of time-series data or compressed phase data, for example, can be accomplished using remote facilities communicatively coupled to the test instrument 140. The test instrument can include a display 110, such as for presentation of configuration information or results, and an input device 112 such as including one or more of a keyboard, trackball, function keys or soft keys, mouse-interface, touch-screen, stylus, or the like, for receiving operator commands, configuration information, or responses to queries.
While the communicative coupling 280C is shown as leading directly from the probe assembly 250 to the compute facility 208, any number of intermediate devices could be used to facilitate such communication, such as including one or more of a base station or wirelessly-accessible network gateway, a repeater device such as an on-site repeater or gateway device, or other devices such as a drone 232C, aerostat, satellite, laptop 232B, or mobile device 232A. Wide-area protocols use for communication between the probe assembly 250 and remote resources such as compute facility 208 can include one or more of a Message Queue Telemetry Transport (MQTT) scheme, a Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) scheme, or use of cellular communications or satellite communications infrastructure. Such communications schemes could be used for communication from an intermediary device such as a mobile device 232A, to a compute facility 208 via a communicative coupling 280B. In an illustrative example, an intermediary device such as a mobile device 232A or laptop 232B can include a first transceiver circuit using a relatively-shorter range communication scheme via a first communicative coupling 280A, and a second transceiver circuit using a relatively longer-range communication scheme (such as conforming to a wide-area protocol) for a second communicative coupling 280B. Such an approach can be referred to as a “two-hop” scheme. In illustrative (but non-limiting) examples where the communicative coupling 280A is a relatively-shorter range communication scheme, the communicative coupling 280A can include use of one or more of a wireless networking scheme (such as conforming to one or more IEEE 802.11-family standards such as implementing a WiFi® scheme), or using another scheme such as Blueooth®, Bluetooth® Low Energy (BLE), an 802.15 wireless personal-area-network standard such as ZigBee or a visible light communication scheme, for example.
One or more of the devices that can be included or accessed by the system 200A can be used to initiate, control, monitor, trigger, or terminate a non-destructive test to be performed by the probe assembly 250 to inspect a target 258. For example, the probe assembly 250 can be fixed, manually positionable, or automatically positionable (e.g., motorized or actuated) to perform a specified test protocol. Unlike other approaches, the phase-based techniques shown and described herein facilitate use of a modularized topology where the probe assembly 250 need not be in wired communication with other control or processing devices. The probe assembly 250 can include or can be coupled with a power source or other circuitry (such as a microcontroller or microprocessor) to perform control of one or more of acoustic transmission or acoustic reception circuitry, without requiring a capability to perform intensive signal processing such as A-scan reconstruction or TFM imaging on-board the probe assembly 250. Such an approach can be referred to as a “small footprint” probe assembly 250, where “small footprint” generally refers to a reduced complexity of on-board signal processing included at the probe assembly 250 or at the point-of-use where the probe assembly 250 is used to perform inspection.
As discussed elsewhere herein, various receiver topologies can be used for the AFE 222 and related circuitry and use of a binarization approach and related phase-encoding can simplify the AFE configuration. Such a receive scheme can also facilitate use of a modified transmit scheme. For example, a transmit pulse amplitude can be reduced compared to other approaches because a dynamic range associated with use of a single-bit quantizing receive approach can be lessened as compared to a corresponding high-resolution amplitude sampling using multi-bit analog-to-digital conversion. Use of a lower transmit amplitude can facilitate higher channel counts and more compact transmit circuitry or transducer geometry, as illustrative enhancements as compared to generally-available approaches involving summed A-scan or TFM imaging where the phase-encoding scheme is not used.
Use of a small-footprint or remotely-controlled probe assembly 250 enables remote inspection schemes or other use cases where the probe assembly 250 is not connected to other portions of the system 200A via a wired link. For example, in locations that are difficult to access by inspection personnel or remote (such as pipeline or off-shore inspection scenarios), the probe assembly 250 can be controlled via a wireless link (e.g., a communicative coupling 280A or 280C), and can provide acoustic inspection data in a compressed manner. Other data can be provided, such as environmental data or test configuration information. In an example, the probe assembly 250 can include optical imaging 292 capability, such as one or more digital imaging sensors. Such optical imaging can include visible light imaging or infra-red imaging, for example. Such optical imaging can be obtained before, after, or contemporaneously with acoustic inspection performed by the probe assembly 250, and such imaging data can be provided to an intermediary device such as the drone 232C, laptop 232B, or mobile device 232A, or to another repository, such as provided by a cloud compute facility 208.
The analog input block 310 of
A portion or an entirety of processing performed in the digital block 320 need not be performed on the same physical device or instrument as is used for acquisition. For example, after binarization by the comparator circuit 304, a representation of the binarized pulse echo signal can be transmitted to another device or assembly for downstream processing. Similarly, an output from the edge identification at 306 can be referred to as a “compressed” representation of the phase data corresponding to the binarized pulse echo signal. The compressed representation can be transmitted to another device or assembly for downstream processing.
This representation could be wirelessly transmitted as shown in scheme (2), discussed below in
The receiver topologies discussed above can also be used to process acoustic echo signals elicited by a modified transmit scheme, as compared to generally-available transmit approaches. For example, a transmit pulse amplitude can be reduced compared to other approaches. A dynamic range associated with use of a single-bit quantizing receive scheme (see
For y(t) values of exactly zero, the result can be assigned as zero, as an example, or as one, as another example. The amplitude of the binarized representation is normalized to values of zero or one, but could be scaled appropriately, gated, or otherwise conditioned to provide a voltage mode or current mode digital signal having desired logic-high and logic-low levels for downstream processing.
For example, as shown illustratively in
y
I
(t)=sign[yI(t)].
and
y
Q
(t)=sign[yQ(t)].
In yet another approach, quantized (e.g., binarized representations) of the in-phase and quadrature signals could be established using a phase values from a unit-circle representation, such as assigned using a look-up table or similar technique. Such a technique can take the place of the sine and cosine functions in either
The phase-summation approach described thus far herein can be used to support various analysis or imaging techniques. For example, summed A-scan generation can be performed, such as by summing time-domain phase representations acquired from multiple transducers or multiple transducer apertures, such as acquired using a PAUT approach.
Examples, as described herein, may include, or may operate by, logic or a number of components, or mechanisms. Circuitry is a collection of circuits implemented in tangible entities that include hardware (e.g., simple circuits, gates, logic, etc.). Circuitry membership may be flexible over time and underlying hardware variability. Circuitries include members that may, alone or in combination, perform specified operations when operating. In an example, hardware of the circuitry may be immutably designed to carry out a specific operation (e.g., hardwired). In an example, the hardware comprising the circuitry may include variably connected physical components (e.g., execution units, transistors, simple circuits, etc.) including a computer readable medium physically modified (e.g., magnetically, electrically, such as via a change in physical state or transformation of another physical characteristic, etc.) to encode instructions of the specific operation. In connecting the physical components, the underlying electrical properties of a hardware constituent may be changed, for example, from an insulating characteristic to a conductive characteristic or vice versa. The instructions enable embedded hardware (e.g., the execution units or a loading mechanism) to create members of the circuitry in hardware via the variable connections to carry out portions of the specific operation when in operation. Accordingly, the computer readable medium is communicatively coupled to the other components of the circuitry when the device is operating. In an example, any of the physical components may be used in more than one member of more than one circuitry. For example, under operation, execution units may be used in a first circuit of a first circuitry at one point in time and reused by a second circuit in the first circuitry, or by a third circuit in a second circuitry at a different time.
Machine (e.g., computer system) 1100 may include a hardware processor 1102 (e.g., a central processing unit (CPU), a graphics processing unit (GPU), a hardware processor core, or any combination thereof), a main memory 1104 and a static memory 1106, some or all of which may communicate with each other via an interlink (e.g., bus) 1130. The machine 1100 may further include a display unit 1110, an alphanumeric input device 1112 (e.g., a keyboard), and a user interface (UI) navigation device 1114 (e.g., a mouse). In an example, the display unit 1110, input device 1112 and UI navigation device 1114 may be a touch screen display. The machine 1100 may additionally include a storage device (e.g., drive unit) 1108, a signal generation device 1118 (e.g., a speaker), a network interface device 1120, and one or more sensors 1116, such as a global positioning system (GPS) sensor, compass, accelerometer, or other sensor. The machine 1100 may include an output controller 1128, such as a serial (e.g., universal serial bus (USB), parallel, or other wired or wireless (e.g., infrared (IR), near field communication (NFC), etc.) connection to communicate or control one or more peripheral devices (e.g., a printer, card reader, etc.).
The storage device 1108 may include a machine-readable medium 1122 on which is stored one or more sets of data structures or instructions 1124 (e.g., software) embodying or utilized by any one or more of the techniques or functions described herein. The instructions 1124 may also reside, completely or at least partially, within the main memory 1104, within static memory 1106, or within the hardware processor 1102 during execution thereof by the machine 1100. In an example, one or any combination of the hardware processor 1102, the main memory 1104, the static memory 1106, or the storage device 1108 may constitute machine-readable media.
While the machine-readable medium 1122 is illustrated as a single medium, the term “machine-readable medium” may include a single medium or multiple media (e.g., a centralized or distributed database, and/or associated caches and servers) configured to store the one or more instructions 1124.
The term “machine-readable medium” may include any medium that is capable of storing, encoding, or carrying instructions for execution by the machine 1100 and that cause the machine 1100 to perform any one or more of the techniques of the present disclosure, or that is capable of storing, encoding or carrying data structures used by or associated with such instructions. Non-limiting machine-readable medium examples may include solid-state memories, and optical and magnetic media. Accordingly, machine-readable media are not transitory propagating signals. Specific examples of massed machine-readable media may include: non-volatile memory, such as semiconductor memory devices (e.g., Electrically Programmable Read-Only Memory (EPROM), Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory (EEPROM)) and flash memory devices; magnetic or other phase-change or state-change memory circuits; magnetic disks, such as internal hard disks and removable disks; magneto-optical disks; and CD-ROM and DVD-ROM disks.
The instructions 1124 may further be transmitted or received over a communications network 1126 using a transmission medium via the network interface device 1120 utilizing any one of a number of transfer protocols (e.g., frame relay, internet protocol (IP), transmission control protocol (TCP), user datagram protocol (UDP), hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP), etc.). Example communication networks may include a local area network (LAN), a wide area network (WAN), a packet data network (e.g., the Internet), mobile telephone networks (e.g., cellular networks such as conforming to one or more standards such as a 4G standard or Long Term Evolution (LTE)), Plain Old Telephone (POTS) networks, and wireless data networks (e.g., Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 family of standards known as Wi-Fi®, IEEE 802.15.4 family of standards, peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, among others). In an example, the network interface device 1120 may include one or more physical jacks (e.g., Ethernet, coaxial, or phone jacks) or one or more antennas to connect to the communications network 1126. In an example, the network interface device 1120 may include a plurality of antennas to wirelessly communicate using at least one of single-input multiple-output (SIMO), multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO), or multiple-input single-output (MISO) techniques. The term “transmission medium” shall be taken to include any intangible medium that is capable of storing, encoding or carrying instructions for execution by the machine 1100, and includes digital or analog communications signals or other intangible medium to facilitate communication of such software.
Each of the non-limiting aspects above can stand on its own or can be combined in various permutations or combinations with one or more of the other aspects or other subject matter described in this document.
The above detailed description includes references to the accompanying drawings, which form a part of the detailed description. The drawings show, by way of illustration, specific embodiments in which the invention can be practiced. These embodiments are also referred to generally as “examples.” Such examples can include elements in addition to those shown or described. However, the present inventors also contemplate examples in which only those elements shown or described are provided. Moreover, the present inventors also contemplate examples using any combination or permutation of those elements shown or described (or one or more aspects thereof), either with respect to a particular example (or one or more aspects thereof), or with respect to other examples (or one or more aspects thereof) shown or described herein.
In the event of inconsistent usages between this document and any documents so incorporated by reference, the usage in this document controls.
In this document, the terms “a” or “an” are used, as is common in patent documents, to include one or more than one, independent of any other instances or usages of “at least one” or “one or more.” In this document, the term “or” is used to refer to a nonexclusive or, such that “A or B” includes “A but not B,” “B but not A,” and “A and B,” unless otherwise indicated. In this document, the terms “including” and “in which” are used as the plain-English equivalents of the respective terms “comprising” and “wherein.” Also, in the following claims, the terms “including” and “comprising” are open-ended, that is, a system, device, article, composition, formulation, or process that includes elements in addition to those listed after such a term in a claim are still deemed to fall within the scope of that claim. Moreover, in the following claims, the terms “first,” “second,” and “third,” etc., are used merely as labels, and are not intended to impose numerical requirements on their objects.
Method examples described herein can be machine or computer-implemented at least in part. Some examples can include a computer-readable medium or machine-readable medium encoded with instructions operable to configure an electronic device to perform methods as described in the above examples. An implementation of such methods can include code, such as microcode, assembly language code, a higher-level language code, or the like. Such code can include computer readable instructions for performing various methods. The code may form portions of computer program products. Such instructions can be read and executed by one or more processors to enable performance of operations comprising a method, for example. The instructions are in any suitable form, such as but not limited to source code, compiled code, interpreted code, executable code, static code, dynamic code, and the like. Further, in an example, the code can be tangibly stored on one or more volatile, non-transitory, or non-volatile tangible computer-readable media, such as during execution or at other times. Examples of these tangible computer-readable media can include, but are not limited to, hard disks, removable magnetic disks, removable optical disks (e.g., compact disks and digital video disks), magnetic cassettes, memory cards or sticks, random access memories (RAMs), read only memories (ROMs), and the like.
The above description is intended to be illustrative, and not restrictive. For example, the above-described examples (or one or more aspects thereof) may be used in combination with each other. Other embodiments can be used, such as by one of ordinary skill in the art upon reviewing the above description. The Abstract is provided to allow the reader to quickly ascertain the nature of the technical disclosure. It is submitted with the understanding that it will not be used to interpret or limit the scope or meaning of the claims. Also, in the above Detailed Description, various features may be grouped together to streamline the disclosure. This should not be interpreted as intending that an unclaimed disclosed feature is essential to any claim. Rather, inventive subject matter may lie in less than all features of a particular disclosed embodiment. Thus, the following claims are hereby incorporated into the Detailed Description as examples or embodiments, with each claim standing on its own as a separate embodiment, and it is contemplated that such embodiments can be combined with each other in various combinations or permutations. The scope of the invention should be determined with reference to the appended claims, along with the full scope of equivalents to which such claims are entitled.
This patent application claims the benefit of priority of Lamarre et al., U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 63/153,055, titled “SMALL-FOOTPRINT ACQUISITION SCHEME FOR ACOUSTIC INSPECTION,” filed on Feb. 24, 2021 (Attorney Docket No. 6409.196PRV), which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
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PCT/CA2022/050217 | 2/15/2022 | WO |
Number | Date | Country | |
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63153055 | Feb 2021 | US |