Detection of gas characteristics, especially the detection of the gas composition, the temperature and/or humidity of a gas, by measuring the speed of sound with a sound sender and a sound receiver both mounted on common structure. A method for determining the humidity of the scavenge air of an internal combustion engine. A speed of sound based gas sensor arrangement adapted to measure gas characteristics, especially the gas composition, the temperature and/or the humidity of a gas, including a sender, a receiver and a signal processing unit. The speed of sound is determined by driving the sender and receiver at different operation cycles in order to differentiate between the different travel times of the sound through the gas and the common structure of solid material.

A method for the measurement of the speed of sound in a gas suitable for the determination of gas characteristics, especially the composition of the gas, the temperature and/or the humidity of the gas, and a speed of sound based gas sensor arrangement adapted to measure that gas characteristics comprising sound sending means and sound receiving means and signal processing unit. A sound sender is used as sound sender and a first sound receiver and a second sound receiver as sound receiving means, all three of them being arranged such that the travel distance of the sound provided by the sender to the first receiver is different from the travel distance of the sound provided by the sender to the second receiver. Further the arrangement includes the signal processing means connected with the sender and the receivers which operate the sender and determine gas characteristics, especially the composition of the gas, the temperature and/or the humidity of the gas, from the different signals provided by the first and the second receiver.

A sonic speed measurement device includes a reception array in which a plurality of reception elements which output reception signals in response to reception of an ultrasonic wave are disposed in one direction, a phase difference detection portion that detects a phase difference between the reception signals output from the reception elements adjacent to each other in a case where the plurality of reception elements receive the ultrasonic wave which propagates in a spherical wave shape from a target point, and a sonic speed calculation portion that calculates a sonic speed of the ultrasonic wave on the basis of the phase difference.

The invention comprises a device and method to estimate the elasticity of soft elastic solids from surface wave measurements. The method is non-destructive, reliable and repeatable. The final device is low-cost and portable. It is based in audio-frequency shear wave propagation in elastic soft solids. Within this frequency range, shear wavelength is centimeter sized. Thus, the experimental data is usually collected in the near-field of the source. Therefore, an inversion algorithm taking into account near-field effects was developed for use with the device. Example applications are shown in beef samples, tissue mimicking materials and in vivo skeletal muscle of healthy volunteers.

A method for super-resolution photoacoustic microscopy of an object. The method includes optically exciting the object according to a plurality of excitation patterns utilizing a digital micromirror device (DMD), receiving a plurality of acoustic waves propagated from the object due to optically exciting the object, reconstructing each of a plurality of photoacoustic (PA) images from a respective acoustic wave of the plurality of acoustic waves, and obtaining a super-resolution PA image of the object from the plurality of PA images by applying a frequency domain reconstruction method to the plurality of PA images. Each of the plurality of acoustic waves are associated with a respective excitation pattern of the plurality of excitation patterns.

Disclose herein is a portable platform based on a direct digital synthesizer (DDS) is investigated for the orthogonal SAW sensor, integrating signal synthesis, gain control, phase/amplitude measurement, and data processing in a small, portable electronic system. The disclosed platform allows for simultaneous removal of non-specific binding proteins, and mixing, as well as improved incubation time.

A fluidic device includes at least one bulk acoustic wave (BAW) resonator structure with a functionalized active region, and at least one first (inlet) port defined through a cover structure arranged over a fluidic passage containing the active region. At least a portion of the at least one inlet port is registered with the active region, permitting fluid to be introduced in a direction orthogonal to a surface of the active region bearing functionalization material. Such arrangement promotes mixing proximate to a BAW resonator structure surface, thereby reducing analyte stratification, increasing analyte binding rate, and reducing measurement time.

A fluidic device includes at least one bulk acoustic wave (BAW) resonator structure with a functionalized active region, and at least one first (inlet) port defined through a cover structure arranged over a fluidic passage containing the active region. At least a portion of the at least one inlet port is registered with the active region, permitting fluid to be introduced in a direction orthogonal to a surface of the active region bearing functionalization material. Such arrangement promotes mixing proximate to a BAW resonator structure surface, thereby reducing analyte stratification, increasing analyte binding rate, and reducing measurement time.

A phase-based approach can be used for one or more of acquisition, storage, or subsequent analysis, e.g., A-scan reconstruction or Total Focusing Method imaging, in support of acoustic inspection. For example, binarization or other quantization technique can be used to compress a data volume associated with time-series signal 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. Using the representation of the phase information, a phase summation technique can be used to perform one or more of A-scan reconstruction, such as for pulse-echo A-scan inspection, or a TFM imaging technique can be used, as illustrative examples. In such a phase summation approach, time-series representations of phase data can be summed, such as where each time-series can be delayed (or phase rotated) by an appropriate delay value and then aggregated.

Disclose herein is a portable platform based on a direct digital synthesizer (DDS) is investigated for the orthogonal SAW sensor, integrating signal synthesis, gain control, phase/amplitude measurement, and data processing in a small, portable electronic system. The disclosed platform allows for simultaneous removal of non-specific binding proteins, and mixing, as well as improved incubation time.