Ultrasonic inspection system with linear transducer array

Claim 2

An ultrasonic inspection system, comprising: a plurality of ultrasonic transmitting transducers; means for energizing selectable groups of said trans­mitting transducers; a plurality of ultrasonic receiving transducers, each of said receiving transducers generating a data output signal representative of ultrasonic energy received by said receiving transducer; and means for combining said data output signals of se­lectable groups of said receiving transducers independent of said transmitting transducer groups and for supplying a second output signal representive of said combined data output signals.

Claim 4

A system as recited in claim 2 wherein said means for combining said data output signals of selectable groups of said receiving transducers includes means for combining said data out­put signals of groups of adjacent receiving transducers.

Claim 5

A system as recited in claim 3 wherein said means for energizing selectable groups of said transmitting transducers comprises; a computer generating a pulse command signal and a bit pattern representative of said groups of transmitting trans­ducers; and pulse means for simultaneously generating an energizing pulse to transmitting transducers in said selected groups, said pulse means comprising a control terminal responsive to said pulse command signal and an enable terminal responsive to said bit pattern.

Claim 6

A system as recited in claim 4 wherein said receiver selection means comprises a plurality of multiplexors coupled to said computer.

Claim 8

A system as recited in claim 6 wherein said calibration means comprises means for calculating and storing difference val­ues for each of said receiving transducers, said difference val­ues representing the difference between data output signals for each of said receiving transducers and the largest of said data output signals, and for combining the data output signal of each of said receiving transducers with the corresponding difference value to obtain a compensated data output signal.

Claim 11

A method as recited in claim 8 wherein the step of energizing the array of ultrasonic transmitting transducers com­prises the steps of: sending a binary bit pattern representative of selected transducers to enable channels of a switching device correspond­ing to the selected transmitting transducers; and sending a pulse command signal to said switching device to generate an energizing pulse to said selected transducers.

Claim 12

A method as recited in claim 8 wherein the step of combining the data output signals comprises the steps of sending a data selection signal and a multiple connection code to a mul­tiplexor device coupled to the outputs of the selected receiving transducers to couple the data output signals of one of said receiving transducers and the data output signals of a number of adjacent receiving transducers specified by said multiple connec­tion code.

Claim 15

A method as recited in claim 11 wherein the step of calculating and storing difference values comprises the steps of: repeatedly executing the steps of generating calibration signals and generating data output signals; and calculating and storing the average of the data output signals for each of the ultrasonic receiving transducers.

Claim 16

A method as recited in claim 11 wherein the step of generating ultrasonic inspection signals comprises simultaneous energization of data selectable groups of said ultrasonic transmitting transducers; the step of generating data output signals comprises combining data output signals of second selectable groups of said ultrasonic transmitting transducers; the step of generating calibration signals comprises simultaneous energization of said data selectable groups of said ultrasonic transmitting transducers; the step of generating data output signals comprises generating calibration output signals from each of said second groups of ultrasonic receiving transducers; the step of calculating and storing a difference value comprises calculating and storing a difference value for each of said second selectable groups of ultrasonic receiving transducers equal to the difference between the data output signal generated by each of said second selectable groups and the largest data output signal; the step of adding the difference value comprises adding the difference value for each of said second selectable groups to the data output signal for the respective member of the second selectable group to produce a compensated data output sig­nal.