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 non-destructive measurement apparatus and method for quantitatively measuring texture of a food snack is disclosed. The apparatus includes a laser generating tool, an ultrasound excitation device, an acoustic capturing device, an ultrasound capturing device and a data processing unit. The laser generating tool and the ultrasound excitation tool direct energy towards a food snack placed on a surface and produce an acoustic signal and an ultrasound signal. The data processing unit further comprises a digital signal processing module that processes the received acoustic signal and ultrasound signal. A statistical processing module further filters the acoustic signal from the data processing unit and generates a quantitative acoustic model for texture attributes such as hardness and fracturability. The quantitative model is correlated with a qualitative texture measurement from a descriptive expert panel. Texture of food snacks are quantitatively measured with the quantitative acoustic model.

A detection device includes an electrostatic capacitance sensor including an electrode pair and being configured to detect electrostatic capacitance of a medium brought into contact with the electrode pair, and a first ultrasonic wave sensor including a first transmission unit configured to transmit an ultrasonic wave and a first reception unit configured to receive an ultrasonic wave transmitted from the first transmission unit. The transmission unit and the reception unit are positioned to sandwich the medium.

A micromechanical device that includes a carrier substrate; a sensor device that is situated on the carrier substrate and spaced apart from a surface section of the carrier substrate with the aid of spring elements in such a way that the sensor device is oscillatable relative to the surface section; and at least one stopper element, situated on the sensor device and/or on the surface section of the carrier substrate, which limits a deflection of the sensor device in the direction of the surface section.

According to one embodiment, a corrosion determination system according to an embodiment includes one or more sensors, an index data acquirer, and a corrosion determiner Elastic waves generated from a structure including at least a member that generates elastic waves due to corrosion are detected. The index data acquirer acquires index data that is an index of an amount of water on the surface of the structure. The corrosion determiner determines whether there is corrosion in the structure based on elastic waves generated due to corrosion identified based on the index data among a plurality of elastic waves detected by the one or more sensors.

A humidity sensor includes a sound wave element configured to transmit a sound wave and receive the sound wave reflected by a reflector, a reception circuit configured to obtain an arrival time of the reflected wave received by the sound wave element, and a humidity analysis circuit configured to calculate humidity by using the arrival time, a distance from the sound wave element to the reflector, and a temperature of a space from the sound wave element to the reflector.

In a method and system for inspecting the condition of a structure, the structure is scanned with a three-dimensional (3D) scanner. The 3D scanner includes a sensing system having one of a radar sensing device or an ultrasonic detection device. The sensing system detects 3D information about a subsurface of the structure, and the 3D scanner generates 3D data points based on the information detected by one or more of the radar sensing device and the ultrasonic detection device. A 3D model is constructed from the 3D data and is then analyzed to determine the condition of the subsurface of the structure.

The present invention is related to a device and a method using said device for the measurement and classification of bubble sizes in a liquid medium. This invention comprises two electric emitter and receiver transducers located at an angle lower than 180 degrees one with respect to the other, and ultrasonic signal emitter and receiver circuits operatively connected to the electric emitter and receiver transducer respectively. The classification of the bubble sizes is based on two-dimensional time domain patterns that represent the trace of the bubbles when they cross a generated ultrasonic field. This invention is of great utility to track processes involving the generation of bubbles in liquid media such as the froth flotation in mining.

A permanently installed monitoring system for corrosion under insulation (PIMSCUI) and a method for performing the monitoring of said system are provided. The objective of the invention by a fiber optic cable permanently mounted between walls of a pipeline and pipeline insulation surrounding the pipeline and placement of acoustic emitters along the length of the pipeline in mechanical contact with the optical fiber. The acoustic emitters send a pulsed acoustic signal towards the pipeline which is received by the optical fiber, the acoustic signal subsequently travels through the pipeline wall, reflecting from the inner diameter of the pipeline before the reflected pulse is received at the optical fiber.