Apparatus is provided having an acoustic-based air probe with an acoustic source configured to provide an acoustic signal into a mixture of concrete; and an acoustic receiver configured to be substantially co-planar with the acoustic source, to respond to the acoustic signal, and to provide signaling containing information about the acoustic signal injected into the mixture of concrete.

Methods and apparatus are provided for non-invasive blood analysis. A blood analysis device (10, 30) comprises a housing (24) for receiving a human or animal body part or a container of blood. The housing (24, 32) comprises at least one wave emitter (18) for emitting an emitted wave to target blood, and at least one wave sensor (26) for sensing a response wave after the emitted wave has interacted with the target blood. The at least one wave sensor is configured to output at least one sense signal allowing a frequency spectrum of the emitted wave to be constructed.

A gas analyzer uses continuous sonic signals through a conduit to determine the composition of a gas in the conduit. A transmitting transducer drives sonic signals at a fixed frequency and a second transducer receives the sonic signals. The phase shift between two signals corresponds to the speed of sound through the gas and is related to the composition of the gas. The electronic versions of these signals are processed by lowering, or dividing, the fixed frequency which expands the range of phase shift measurement and allows the determination of an expanded range for the gas composition. In an ozone generation system, the gas analyzer is highly suitable for determining the composition of gases derived from air as a gas of known composition and a calibration point.

A sensing device capable of detecting hardness includes a sensor array including a plurality of sensors, each of the plurality of sensors including a transmitter configured to emit a detection wave and a receiver configured to receive a reflected detection wave reflected by an object, the plurality of sensors arranged in a matrix form; and a controller configured to obtain image information and hardness information of each portion of the object from the reflected waves received by the plurality of sensors, and to form three-dimensional print data by mapping the image information and the hardness information.

The present invention relates to a safety diagnosis method for a structure using a nonlinear ultrasonic wave modulation technique. The safety diagnosis method includes: making the structure vibrate by applying signals of different ultrasonic frequencies; converting the responses of the structure generated by the vibration into digital signals; extracting first modulation signals by subtracting the harmonic responses and the linear responses of the signals of different ultrasonic frequencies from the digital signals and synchronously demodulating the digital signals; constructing a first sideband spectrogram by combining the first modulation signals generated by continuously changing at least frequency among the signals of different ultrasonic frequencies; and deciding whether the structure is cracked based on the first sideband spectrogram. Even though the power of the ultrasonic wave applied to the structure is very small as compared with the related art, whether there is the damage is precisely decided, and thus power consumption may be reduced.

An image generation apparatus including a computation processing section that generates an ultrasonic image from a received signal associated with each scanning of an object in which an ultrasonic wave is transmitted and received is provided. The computation processing section sets, for each scanning, a selection range over which the received signal is received and which includes the direction of the scanning, calculates weights used in a beamforming process based on the received signals within the selection range, and carries out the beamforming process based on the weights to generate an image associated with the scanning.

A method for evaluating installation of blind rivets including measuring the “cycle time” represented “y.sub.0”, transmitting sound waves through the blind rivet installed in the structure, measuring the “travel time” represented “x.sub.0”, relating “travel time” and “cycle time”, and obtaining a pair of times (x.sub.0,y.sub.0), providing a time relation pattern establishing a borderline between an area of suitable rivets and an area of unsuitable rivets, the border represented y=f(x), so for cycle time values greater than y=f(x), it is considered a “suitable area”, for cycle time values less than y=f(x), it is considered an “unsuitable area”, representing pair (x.sub.0,y.sub.0) in the graphic representation and verifying if the value of y.sub.0 is greater or less than the value of y=f(x0), classifying installation of the rivet as suitable or unsuitable according to the verification.

Apparatus is provided comprising a signal processor that receives signaling containing information about an acoustic signal swept and sensed over a frequency range in relation to a pipe; and determines information about the structure of the pipe based at least partly on two or more sub-frequency ranges that form part of the frequency range in the signaling received. The signal processor also receives the acoustic signal being transmitted to the pipe and corresponding signaling in the two or more sub-frequency ranges containing information about reflections of the acoustic signal back from the pipe; and determines information about the structure of the pipe based at least partly on a coherent mixing of the acoustic signal and the corresponding signaling in the two or more sub-frequency ranges using a coherent acoustic tomography technique. Alternatively, the signal processor also receives associated signaling in the two or more sub-frequency ranges containing information about associated resonance in a liner of a wall of the pipe and determines information about the liner of the wall of the pipe, based at least partly on the two or more sub-frequency ranges.

An ultrasound sub-surface probe microscopy device (1) is provided comprising a stage (10), a signal generator (20), a scanning head (30), a signal processor (50) and a scanning mechanism (16). In use, the stage (10) carries a sample (11) and the scanning M mechanism (16) provides for a relative displacement between the sample (11) and the scanning head (30), along the surface of the sample. The scanning head (30) comprises an actuator (31) configured to generate in response to a drive signal (S.sub.dr) from the signal generator (20) an ultrasound acoustic input signal (I.sub.ac). The generated ultrasound acoustic input signal (I.sub.ac) has at least one acoustic input signal component (I.sub.ac1) with a first angular frequency (ω1). The scanning head (30) further comprises a tip (32) to transmit the acoustic input signal (I.sub.ac) through a tip-sample interface (12) as an acoustic wave (W.sub.ac) into the sample. Due to a non-linear interaction in the tip-sample interface (12) at least one up mixed acoustic signal component (W.sub.ac2) in said acoustic wave that has a second angular frequency (ω2) higher than the first angular frequency (ω1) Contrary to known approaches, the sensor signal (S.sub.sense) provided by the sensor facility is indicative for a contribution (W′.sub.ac2) of the at least one up mixed acoustic signal component in reflections (W′.sub.ac) of the acoustic wave within the sample (11). Therewith a relatively high resolution can be achieved with which subsurface features can be detected.

The present document relates to a heterodyne scanning probe microscopy (SPM) method for subsurface imaging, and includes: applying an acoustic input signal to a sample and sensing an acoustic output signal using a probe. The acoustic input signal comprises a plurality of signal components at unique frequencies, including a carrier frequency and at least two excitation frequencies. The carrier frequency and the excitation frequencies form a group of frequencies, which are distributed with an equal difference frequency between each two subsequent frequencies of the group. The difference frequency is below a sensitivity threshold frequency of the cantilever for enabling sensing of the acoustic output signal. The document also describes an SPM system.