A wall-climbing robot system and method for rapid nondestructive inspection of hidden defects in culverts and sluices. The system includes: a robot vehicle body; navigation positioning system and moving system, both mounted on the robot vehicle body; automatic knock inspection system, mounted at the vehicle body front end; mobile ultrasonic rapid inspection system and corrosion inspection system, dual-power system, formed by a non-contact negative pressure adsorption apparatus and rotor booster apparatuses, the non-contact negative pressure adsorption apparatus mounted on the vehicle body bottom, the rotor booster apparatuses mounted on two sides of the vehicle body; and a master controller, communicating with the navigation positioning system, moving system, automatic knock inspection system, mobile ultrasonic rapid inspection system, corrosion inspection system, and dual-power system. The system recognizes positions and categories of internal defects from ultrasonic data and perform concrete permittivity inversion and disease recognition on arbitrary length-continuous survey line ground-penetrating radar data.

Inspection robots with center encoders are described. An example inspection robot may have a housing, and a drive module, where the drive module has a wheel and a motor and is operatively coupled to the housing. The example inspection robot may also have an encoder to provide a movement value, where the encoder is positioned within a footprint of the housing. The example inspection robot may also have a controller with an encoder conversion circuit to calculate a distance value in response to the movement value, a location circuit to determine at least one of a robot location value or a robot speed value, and a position command circuit to provide a position action command in response to the robot location value or the robot speed value. The drive module may be responsive to the position action command to move the inspection robot.

Systems and methods of determining physical conditions of a battery, such as state of charge (SOC), state of health (SOH), quality of construction, defect, or failure state include driving two or more acoustic signals of two or more amplitudes, each acoustic signal having two or more frequencies, into the battery and detecting vibrations generated in the battery based on the two or more acoustic signals. Nonlinear response characteristics of the battery for the two or more acoustic signals are determined from the detected vibrations. The physical conditions of the battery are determined based at least in part on the nonlinear response characteristics, using nonlinear acoustic resonance spectroscopy (NARS) or nonlinear resonant ultrasound spectroscopy (NRUS).

Provided is an abnormality prediction system and an abnormality prediction method that are capable of predicting an abnormality occurring in a die that is used in a press machine. A die abnormality prediction system (50) includes: an acoustic emission (AE) sensor (62) configured to detect an elastic wave that occurs in a processing portion of a die during processing performed by a press machine using the die; a stamping load detection sensor (61) configured to detect a parameter (a stamping load) other than a parameter regarding the elastic wave, out of parameters regarding a state of the die during the processing performed by the press machine using the die; a score calculation unit (56) configured to calculate an abnormality prediction score of the die based on an output signal from the AE sensor (62) and an output signal from the stamping load detection sensor (61); and an abnormality prediction unit (57) configured to predict an abnormality occurring in the die, based on a result of the calculation performed by the score calculation unit (56).

Proactively identifying and interdicting transport of commodities associated with illicit nuclear materials and nuclear weapons shielded by high Z-number materials, such as lead, can help ensure effective nuclear nonproliferation. In an embodiment, a method for imaging an object on a surface includes exciting a surface with ultrasonic excitation from an ultrasonic transmitter having an ultrasonic transducer in contact with the surface. The method further includes imaging, at a processor, a two-dimensional representation of the object acoustically coupled to the surface based on the ultrasonic reflections received at an ultrasonic receiver via a receiving transducer in contact with the surface. This method can complement existing x-ray screening systems to increase the odds of detecting radiological materials.

A multi-feed detection device includes a transmission circuit substrate on which an ultrasonic transmitter transmitting an ultrasonic wave is installed, and an ultrasonic receiver receiving the ultrasonic wave. The ultrasonic transmitter transmits the ultrasonic wave in a direction intersecting a thickness direction of the transmission circuit substrate and at least one of the ultrasonic transmitter and the ultrasonic receiver has a plurality of ultrasonic elements.

Inspection robots with independent drive module suspension are described. An example inspection robot may have a housing with a first connector on a first side of the housing, and a second connector on a second side of the housing. A first drive module, having at least one wheel and a first motor, may be operatively coupled to the first connector, and a second drive module, having at least one wheel and a first motor, may be operatively coupled to the second connector. The first and second drive modules may be coupled by a drive connector.

Inspection robots with swappable drive modules are described. An example inspect robot may include a first removeable interface plate on the side of a robot chassis. The first removable interface plate may couple a first drive module to an electronic board, within the chassis, where the electronic board includes a drive module interface circuit communicatively coupled to the first drive module. The example inspect robot may also include a second removeable interface plate on a side of a robot chassis. The second removable interface plate may couple a second drive module to an electronic board, within the chassis, where the electronic board includes a drive module interface circuit communicatively coupled to the second drive module.

A system and method for the non-destructive testing of additively manufactured parts. An input mechanism excites with an excitation force (e.g., a vibration) an additive manufacturing build platform on which the part is located to induce a dynamic response in the part. An output mechanism (e.g., a non-contact transducer) senses the induced dynamic response in the part. A processor determines and examines the relationship between the response and excitation to identify an indication of a defect in the part, and communicates an alert if the indication is identified. The processor may compare the phase, magnitude, coherence, or time delay of the relationship to a reference relationship and/or may compare the modal frequency or the modal damping to a reference to identify a deviation greater than a pre-established threshold.

Systems, apparatuses and methods for growing marijuana plants, particularly for regulated purposes, for example medical purposes or in some jurisdictions recreational purposes, have automated subsystems with sensors to provide feedback information about system, apparatus and plant growth parameters to one or more controllers so that the one or more controllers can alter one or more parameters to provide optimal conditions for the growing and harvesting of the marijuana plants. In particular aspects, the systems, apparatuses and methods provide for control of odors produced during the growing of marijuana, root management of the marijuana plants and control over important levels of chemicals provided to the plants, for example enzymes and flavor additives.