scholarly journals A Versatile Illumination System for Real-Time Terahertz Imaging

Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (14) ◽  
pp. 3993
Author(s):  
Jean-Baptiste Perraud ◽  
Adrien Chopard ◽  
Jean-Paul Guillet ◽  
Pierre Gellie ◽  
Antoine Vuillot ◽  
...  

Terahertz technologies are attracting strong interest from high-end industrial fields, and particularly for non-destructive-testing purposes. Currently lacking compactness, integrability as well as adaptability for those implementations, the development and commercialisation of more efficient sources and detectors progressively ensure the transition toward applicative implementations, especially for real-time full-field imaging. In this work, a flexible illumination system, based on fast beam steering has been developed and characterized. Its primary goal is to suppress interferences induced by the coherence length of certain terahertz sources, spoiling terahertz images. The second goal is to ensure an enhanced signal-to-noise ratio on the detector side by the full use and optimized distribution of the available power. This system provides a homogeneous and adjustable illumination through a simplified setup to guarantee optimum real-time imaging capabilities, tailored to the sample under inspection. Working toward industrial implementations, different illumination process are conveniently assessed as a result of the versatility of this method.

2020 ◽  
Vol 87 (6) ◽  
pp. 404-413
Author(s):  
Fabian Zechel ◽  
Rouwen Kunze ◽  
Niels König ◽  
Robert Heinrich Schmitt

AbstractIn this review paper, conventional non-destructive testing (NDT) methods are briefly introduced and compared with selected examples for applications of optical coherence tomography (OCT) for NDT. The contactless, non-destructive and purely optical method enables multi-dimensional imaging for tomographic real-time evaluation in various fields of application. Depending on the material, penetration depths of several millimeters can be achieved, thus providing an attractive solution that can be used both as a stand-alone and as a process-integrated solution.


Author(s):  
Martin H. Skjelvareid ◽  
Yngve Birkelund

Synthetic aperture focusing techniques (SAFT) have already been studied within several fields of non-destructive testing, but so far only with a single, relatively homogenous medium. In this article, we modify the original time-domain SAFT in order to image the interior of a multilayer structure. Standard focusing techniques assume that the wave velocity is constant within the volume to be imaged. The concept of the root-mean-square (RMS) velocity is used here to modify the classical delay-and-sum algorithm to handle layers with differing wave velocities. A scheme for iteratively using this to estimate the interfaces between the layers is also presented. The proposed method is demonstrated on ultrasonic B-scans of two test objects immersed in water, and it is shown that the increased lateral resolution and signal-to-noise ratio of standard SAFT is extended to the multilayer case. The increased resolution also makes it possible to accurately estimate the interfaces between consecutive layers, as long as the preceding interfaces are relatively smooth.


Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (12) ◽  
pp. 3381 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shakeb Deane ◽  
Nicolas P. Avdelidis ◽  
Clemente Ibarra-Castanedo ◽  
Hai Zhang ◽  
Hamed Yazdani Nezhad ◽  
...  

This work aims to address the effectiveness and challenges of non-destructive testing (NDT) by active infrared thermography (IRT) for the inspection of aerospace-grade composite samples and seeks to compare uncooled and cooled thermal cameras using the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) as a performance parameter. It focuses on locating impact damages and optimising the results using several signal processing techniques. The work successfully compares both types of cameras using seven different SNR definitions, to understand if a lower-resolution uncooled IR camera can achieve an acceptable NDT standard. Due to most uncooled cameras being small, lightweight, and cheap, they are more accessible to use on an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The concept of using a UAV for NDT on a composite wing is explored, and the UAV is also tracked using a localisation system to observe the exact movement in millimetres and how it affects the thermal data. It was observed that an NDT UAV can access difficult areas and, therefore, can be suggested for significant reduction of time and cost.


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