Развитие технологии настройки акустических систем при ультразвуковом контроле сварных соединений

The urgent task is improvement of the accuracy of diagnosing the linear part of pipelines, structures and equipment of pumping and compressor stations, tank batteries, tank farm complexes. Therewith, it is required not only to identify a defect with a given probability, but also to ensure measurement of its shape and dimensions with accuracy to be sufficient to perform analysis of structures for strength and durability. The article deals with certain possibilities for increasing the detectability of volumetric defects, such as knots, through improvement of the methods for setting parameters of ultrasound pulse-echo testing. The results of research in the field of improvement of the technology for setting advanced ultrasonic systems using phased array antennas are presented. Cylinder-shaped drilled holes of different orientations have been reviewed as artificial defects for setting sensitivity and time base of the flaw-detecting instrument. Following on the earlier published works, the expediency of using vertical cylindrical drilling for setting the equipment is additionally justified: such target is the easiest to manufacture, its parameters are verified much easier than, for example, the parameters of flatbottomed holes. Examples are given of the practical use of drills of various orientations for adjusting sensitivity of monitoring and determination of the indication length of local bulk defects of the base metal and welds. Актуальной является задача повышения точности диагностирования линейной части трубопроводов, сооружений и оборудования перекачивающих и компрессорных станций, резервуарных парков, нефтебаз. При этом требуется не просто выявить дефект с заданной вероятностью, но и обеспечить измерение его формы и размеров с точностью, достаточной для выполнения расчетов конструкций на прочность и долговечность. В статье рассмотрены некоторые возможности повышения выявляемости объемных дефектов типа свищей за счет совершенствования способов настройки параметров ультразвукового контроля эхо-методом. Представлены результаты исследований в области совершенствования технологии настройки современных ультразвуковых систем, использующих фазированные антенные решетки. В качестве искусственных дефектов для настройки чувствительности и временной развертки дефектоскопа рассмотрены цилиндрические сверления разной ориентации. В развитие ранее опубликованных работ обоснована целесообразность применения для настройки оборудования вертикального цилиндрического сверления: такая мишень наиболее проста в изготовлении, ее параметры поверяются значительно проще, чем, например, параметры плоскодонных отверстий. Приведены примеры практического использования сверлений различной ориентации для настройки чувствительности контроля и определения условной протяженности локальных объемных дефектов основного металла и сварных швов.

Reducing Subcarriers Beam-Squinting of Ultra-Wideband Mobile Communication Systems using Phased Array Antennas

There has been increasing demand for accessible radio spectrum with the rapid development of mobile wireless devices and applications. For example, a GHz of spectrum is needed for fifth-generation (5G) cellular communication, but the avail- able spectrum below 6 GHz cannot meet such requirements. Fortunately, spectrum at higher frequencies, in particular, millimeter-wave bands, can be utilized through phased-array analog beamforming to provide access to large amounts of spectrum. However, the gain provided by a phased array is frequency dependent in the wideband system, an effect called beam squint. We examine the nature of beam squint and develop convenient models with a uniform linear array. To further simplify the evaluation of the system performance, an approximated closed-form expression for the array gain is derived. Furthermore, to evaluate the performance of the proposed design, rigorous numerical results concerning different system parameters are provided in this paper.

Rapid Test Method for Multi-Beam Profile of Phased Array Antennas

The testing requirements of the active phased array antennas are very different from those of traditional passive antennas, due to its beam steering capability. Usually, each beam profile of the active phased array needs a separate radiation pattern test, which makes the overall testing time extremely long. Thus the traditional antenna test method can no longer meet the efficiency and cost requirements of new active phased array antennas test. In this paper, a fast test method tailored for phased array antennas is proposed that offers significantly reduced testing time at the expense of slight sacrifice of the accuracy. Using the simulated element pattern in array and ideal port excitation, the beam profile in any direction can be predicted by testing only a certain beam profile. Through theoretical derivation and experiments, the effectiveness of the method is verified, and the testing efficiency of the phased array antenna is demonstrated to be improved by ten times or even more.

Low Discrepancy Sparse Phased Array Antennas

Sparse arrays have grating lobes in the far field pattern due to the large spacing of elements residing in a rectangular or triangular grid. Random element spacing removes the grating lobes but produces large variations in element density across the aperture. In fact, some areas are so dense that the elements overlap. This paper introduces a low discrepancy sequence (LDS) for generating the element locations in sparse planar arrays without grating lobes. This nonrandom alternative finds an element layout that reduces the grating lobes while keeping the elements far enough apart for practical construction. Our studies consider uniform sparse LDS arrays with 86% less elements than a fully populated array, and numerical results are presented that show these sampling techniques are capable of completely removing the grating lobes of sparse arrays. We present the mathematical formulation for implementing an LDS generated element lattice for sparse planar arrays, and present numerical results on their performance. Multiple array configurations are studied, and we show that these LDS techniques are not impacted by the type/shape of the planar array. Moreover, in comparison between the LDS techniques, we show that the Poisson disk sampling technique outperforms all other approaches and is the recommended LDS technique for sparse arrays.

Phased-array antennas using novel PSoC-controlled phase shifters for wireless applications

The paper proposes a system consisting of novel programmable system on chip (PSoC)-controlled phase shifters which in turn guides the beam of an antenna array attached to it. Four antennae forming an array receive individual inputs from the programmable phase shifters (IC 2484). The input to the PSoC-based phase shifter is provided from an optimized 1:4 Wilkinson power divider. The antenna consists of an inverted L-shaped dipole on the front and two mirrored inverted L-shaped dipoles mounted on a rectangular conductive structure on the back which resonates in the ISM/Wi-Fi band (2.40–2.48 GHz). The power divider is designed to provide the feed to the phase shifter using a beamforming network while ensuring good isolation among the ports. The power divider has measured S11, S21, S31, S41, and S51 to be −14, −6.25, −6.31, −6.28, and −6.31 dB, respectively at a frequency of 2.45 GHz. The ingenious controller is designed in-house using a PSoC microcontroller to regulate the control voltage of individual phase shifter IC and generate progressive phase shifts. To validate the calibration of the in-house designed control circuit, the phased array is simulated using $s_p^2$ touchstone file of IC 2484. This designed control circuit exhibits low insertion loss close to −8.5 dB, voltage standing wave ratio of 1.58:1, and reflection coefficient (S11) is −14.36 dB at 2.45 GHz. Low insertion loss variations confirm that the phased-array antenna gives equal amplitude and phase. The beamforming radiation patterns for different scan angles (30, 60, and 90°) for experimental and simulated phased-array antenna are matched accurately showing the accuracy of the control circuit designed. The average experimental and simulated gain is 13.03 and 13.48 dBi respectively. The in-house designed controller overcomes the primary limitations associated with the present electromechanical phased array such as cost weight, size, power consumption, and complexity in design which limits the use of a phased array to military applications only. The current study with novel design and enhanced performance makes the system worthy of the practical use of phased-array antennas for common society at large.

Convolutional neural network for 2D adaptive beamforming of phased array antennas with robustness to array imperfections

Achieving robust and fast two-dimensional adaptive beamforming of phased array antennas is a challenging problem due to its high-computational complexity. To address this problem, a deep-learning-based beamforming method is presented in this paper. In particular, the optimum weight vector is computed by modeling the problem as a convolutional neural network (CNN), which is trained with I/O pairs obtained from the optimum Wiener solution. In order to exhibit the robustness of the new technique, it is applied on an 8 × 8 phased array antenna and compared with a shallow (non-deep) neural network namely, radial basis function neural network. The results reveal that the CNN leads to nearly optimal Wiener weights even in the presence of array imperfections.