Class / Patent application number | Description | Number of patent applications / Date published |
702054000 | Acoustic or vibration sensor | 29 |
20090088987 | Level measurement system - To provide a simpler and less expensive system for multipoint level measurement, the level measurement system comprises at least two sensor devices operating in accordance with the pulse-echo principle and being connected via a communication network to a signal processing device. The computation-intensive evaluation of echo profiles for calculating distances or ranges is thus shifted from the sensor devices at the measurement locations or sites to the central signal processing device. | 04-02-2009 |
20090093977 | Method and device for acoustic measurement of the specific density of a gaseous or liquid medium - There is described a method and device for measurement of the specific density of a gaseous or liquid medium, whereby a pulsed acoustic signal is injected into the measured medium by means of a transmitting transducer, the signal is detected by a receiver transducer, after passing over a measured path, whereupon the acoustic impedance Z is automatically determined in an analytical device by comparison of a curve for the currently measured received signal with reference curves, predetermined for various values of the acoustic impedances stored for each value of the acoustic impedance, whereby the propagation speed c of the acoustic signal in the medium is determined and the density p of the medium is calculated as the quotient from the acoustic impedance Z and the propagation speed c. The method is preferably of application to an ultrasound mass flow measurement device and hence has the advantage that no additional density sensor is required, nevertheless permitting a robust and precise measurement of density. | 04-09-2009 |
20090138216 | Static and Ultrasonic Methods for Measuring Compressibility and/or Density of Particles, Including Nanoparticles, in Suspension - A method of measuring the compressibility, and/or the density, of small particles, and especially nano-particles, in suspension is described. The static method uses steady pressures and measures the d-c (static) compressibility of particles. The ultrasonic method utilizes an ultrasonic pulsed doppler system to measure the compressibility of particles at ultrasonic frequencies, which may differ from static values. These methods can also be used together to provide overlapping and complementary information about the particles. In addition, the ultrasonic pulsed doppler system also provides a way to measure particle density. | 05-28-2009 |
20090216467 | Sensor, system, and method, for measuring fluid properties using Multi-Mode Quasi-Shear-Horizontal Resonator - A system and a method for providing information on two of the three variables, density (ρ), viscosity (η), and elastic modulus (c) of a fluid, such that independent knowledge of one variable allows the remaining two variables to be measured by a single sensor. The present invention relies on the interaction of a predominantly shear horizontal acoustic wave device (“quasi-shear-horizontal”) with the fluid, so as to measure subtle differences in the interaction of two or more acoustic resonance states or waveguide modes of a multi-mode resonator or waveguide, and to derive the desired fluid characteristics therefrom. The most preferred embodiment is a dual-mode coupled resonator filter geometry with one resonant mode having a high degree of symmetry and the other having a high degree of anti-symmetry. By combining the additional information of multi-moded operation with the inherent ability of a horizontally-polarized quasi-shear-horizontal acoustic wave device (AWD) to operate in fluid environments, one obtains a multi-mode quasi-shear-horizontal (MMQSH) resonator. | 08-27-2009 |
20090254289 | METHODS AND SYSTEMS TO FORM HIGH EFFICIENCY AND UNIFORM FRESNEL LENS ARRAYS FOR ULTRASONIC LIQUID MANIPULATION - Apparatus and methods to form high efficiency and uniform Fresnel lens arrays for ultrasonic liquid manipulation are provided. An ultrasonic transducer array may be fabricated by forming top and bottom electrodes on top and bottom surfaces of a sensor plate. The ultrasonic transducer array may generate ultrasonic energy to manipulate one or more samples. Each of the top and bottom electrodes may be coupled to a radio frequency source and arranged to form one of a solid shape or a pattern. Additional apparatus and methods are disclosed. | 10-08-2009 |
20090299661 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR MINIMISING NOISE IN ARRAYS COMPRISING PRESSURE AND PRESSURE GRADIENT SENSORS - The invention relates to a method of analyzing signals from an array of sensors, the array including one or more pressure sensor and one or more pressure-gradient sensor. The method includes combining data received from one or more pressure sensors and data from one or more of the pressure-gradient sensors, in such a way as substantially to eliminate noise components from the product. The invention also relates to a sonar system and an array configuration for implementing the method, as well as a computer readable product, storage device storing the computer readable product and computer receivable signal for implementing the method. | 12-03-2009 |
20100017152 | Non-Contact Apparatus for Monitoring the Height of Contents of a Moving Container, a Monitoring Station Including the Apparatus and a Non-Contact Method of Monitoring the Height of Contents of a Container - A non-contact apparatus is provided for monitoring the height of contents of a moving container, such as a beverage can | 01-21-2010 |
20100153028 | POWDERY/GRANULAR MATERIAL FLOWABILITY EVALUATION APPARATUS AND METHOD - A powdery/granular material flowability evaluation apparatus and a powdery/granular material flowability evaluation method are provided to evaluate the flowability of a powdery/granular material in a dynamic state of the powdery/granular material. The powdery/granular material flowability evaluation apparatus (A) has a hopper ( | 06-17-2010 |
20100161251 | METHOD FOR DETERMINING AND/OR MONITORING A PROCESS VARIABLE OF A MEDIUM, AND CORRESPONDING APPARATUS - Method for determining and/or monitoring a process variable of a medium, wherein a mechanically oscillatable unit is supplied with an exciter signal wherein a received signal coming from the mechanically oscillatable unit is received, and wherein the exciter signal is produced in such a manner, that a phase difference between the exciter signal and the received signal equals a predeterminable phase value. A criterion for judging the determining of the phase difference between the exciter signal and the received signal, or a signal dependent on the exciter signal or on the received signal, is established; in the case, in which the criterion for judging the determining of the phase difference is fulfilled, tuning of the phase difference is closed-loop controlled; and, in the alternative case, tuning of the phase difference is open-loop controlled. An apparatus associated with the method is also disclosed. | 06-24-2010 |
20100332157 | Method for Querying a Piezoelectric Resonator and Querying Device Implementing Said Querying Method - A method for interrogating a passive sensor comprising at least one piezoelectric resonator includes the following steps:
| 12-30-2010 |
20110015879 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR MEASURING THE AERODYNAMIC NOISE OF A VEHICLE - A method and a system for measuring the aerodynamic noise of a vehicle; the system is provided with: a measuring station, which is adapted to receive the vehicle and is provided with a supporting element; at least one blower carried by the supporting element and adapted to generate an air jet towards the vehicle; an actuating device for displacing the supporting element with respect to the vehicle; at least one phonometer for measuring the aerodynamic noise produced by the vehicle struck by the air jet generated by the blower; a position sensor for detecting the position of the supporting element with respect to the vehicle; and a processing unit connected to the phonometer and to the position sensor for correlating the aerodynamic noise measurements supplied by the phonometer with the position of the supporting element with respect to the vehicle. | 01-20-2011 |
20110071776 | CONTROLLED COMPRESSIONAL WAVE COMPONENTS OF THICKNESS SHEAR MODE MULTI-MEASURAND SENSORS - The current invention relates to a conductivity-dielectric (CD) electrode design with apertures that allow compressional waves to propagate away from the surface of the acoustic wave device unimpeded. This prevents reflection of compressional waves that would interact with the viscosity sensor surface, thus altering the device response. It allows compressional waves to pass through, and allows the dual mode viscosity sensor responses to be utilized for density/viscosity/elasticity measurement and correlation. The invention further offers methods of instrumentation to detect unwanted reflections, to compensate, and to correct for the distortions caused by reflections. Finally, the invention provides a system and method for utilizing deliberately introduced reflections to obtain additional information, including fluid density. | 03-24-2011 |
20110118998 | APPLICATIONS OF PUMP PERFORMANCE MONITORING - The present invention provides a processor or signal processing module that features one or more modules configured to receive an input signal containing information about the unsteady pressures or acoustic emissions caused by a medium flowing through a pump, and also configured to provide of an output signal containing information about the performance of the pump. The information about the performance of the pump may include information about pump performance monitoring by a slip flow measurement, about predicting impeller wear, about pump impeller cavitation monitoring, about pump monitoring through acoustic emissions, about pump leak detection, about pump efficiency monitoring and about positive displacement pump monitoring. | 05-19-2011 |
20110130980 | METHOD AND DEVICE FOR MEASURING VISCO-ELASTIC FLUID PARAMETERS - The invention relates to measuring visco-elastic fluid parameters, in particular, in the oil production industry, for defining heavy oil parameters during field development. | 06-02-2011 |
20110301882 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PASSIVE ACOUSTIC MONITORING OF FLUIDS AND SOLIDS IN PIPE FLOW - The invention relates to a system or method for measuring and analyzing acoustic signals from a pipe, e.g. from solid particles or cleaning pigs transported with fluid flow in a pipe, the method comprising the following steps: *registering acoustic signals generated in the pipe in at least one time window, *splitting the signals in a number of frequency bands, *processing the filtered signals to calculate characteristics of the fluid flow in a pipe, the characteristics including mean and deviation of the signal in each frequency band, the characteristics being indicative of possible events occurring in the pipe. | 12-08-2011 |
20120123705 | Measuring system having a measuring transducer of vibration-type - A measuring system comprises: a measuring transducer; transmitter electronics; at least one measuring tube; and at least one oscillation exciter. The transmitter electronics delivers a driver signal for the at least one oscillation exciter, and for feeding electrical, excitation power into the at least one oscillation exciter. The driver signal, has a sinusoidal signal component which corresponds to an instantaneous eigenfrequency, and in which the at least one measuring tube can execute, or executes, eigenoscillations about a resting position. The eigenoscillations have an oscillation node and in the region of the wanted, oscillatory length exactly one oscillatory antinode. The driver signal has, a sinusoidal signal component with a signal frequency, which deviates from each instantaneous eigenfrequency of each natural mode of oscillation of the at least one measuring tube, in each case, by more than 1 Hz and/or by more than 1% of said eigenfrequency. | 05-17-2012 |
20130304404 | Apparatus for Non-invasive Determination of Sound Velocity in a Liquid and Determining a Parameter of the Liquid from the Sound Velocity - Apparatus for determining the sound velocity of a liquid in a specimen having two walls between which the liquid is contained with one of the walls being deformable has a sensor including a transducer for transmitting ultrasonic energy signals between the specimen walls and apparatus for deforming the specimen wall by a known distance from a first to a second position relatively spaced from the transducer and an electronic circuit including a microprocessor for measuring first and second transit times of the signals through the liquid between the specimen walls for each of the specimen deformable wall first and second positions, and for calculating the sound velocity of the liquid based upon the known distance and the two measured transit times. Where blood is the liquid values of parameters such as glucose and hematocrit are obtained based on algorithms pre-programmed in the microprocessor. | 11-14-2013 |
20140032137 | HEATING SYSTEM STATE MONITORING AND REPORTING SYSTEM AND DEVICE - A non-invasive sensing system for determining the operating state of a heating, ventilation or air conditioning (HVAC) system. The sensing system, which includes at least one acoustic or mechanical vibration sensor, may be positioned on the HVAC system's housing to detect acoustic and/or mechanical vibration emissions in one or more specific ranges of frequencies that are characteristic of emissions resulting from the operation of the HVAC system. The sensing system can also incorporate a thermal sensor, which may be placed on the HVAC system's exhaust gas pipe. A sensing unit may communicate through a network with a server for computing system statuses and fuel consumption. The server may provide usage and efficiency information to subscriber devices and send out-of-range alerts to subscribers. | 01-30-2014 |
20140046606 | METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR MULTIBEAM DOPPLER ULTRASOUND DISPLAY - There is provided a method for monitoring fluid flow, the method including: acquiring a pulse-echo signal from each of a plurality of spatially adjacent regions; for each of the pulse echo signals, forming a velocity spectrum; combining the plurality of velocity spectra into a composite data set which contains both spatial data and velocity data; and displaying the composite data set so as to present at least one aspect of the velocity data with at least one aspect of the spatial data. By combining both spatial and spectral velocity data into a composite data set and displaying aspects of the spatial data with aspects of the velocity data, the clinician can easily gauge in a quantitative or semi-quantitative way, both the size and velocities of fluid flows. In particular, the technique is useful for assessing valvular regurgitation jets in cardiac blood flows. | 02-13-2014 |
20140107953 | CONTAINER FILL LEVEL DETECTION - Systems and methods for determining different fill levels of objects in the containers for disposable and consumable objects are disclosed. A sensor unit can detect presence of an object passing into a waste container and different levels of the objects in the waste container as the objects fill the waste container. When the waste container is full, a notification message may be generated to empty or replace the waste container. The sensor unit can also detect different levels of objects in a consumable container as the objects are removed from the consumable container. When the consumable container is empty, a notification message may be generated to refill or replace the consumable container. In embodiments of the invention, a notification message may also be generated for a predetermined level of objects in the container. | 04-17-2014 |
20140107954 | APPARATUS FOR AND METHOD OF MONITORING CONDENSED WATER IN STEAM PIPES AT HIGH TEMPERATURE - A system and method for monitoring the properties of a fluid, such as water, in a steam pipe without mechanically penetrating the wall of the pipe. The system uses a piezoelectric transducer to launch an ultrasonic probe signal into the pipe. Reflected ultrasonic signals are captured in a transducer, which can be the same transducer that launched the probe signal. The reflected signals are subjected to data processing, which can include filtering, amplification, analog-to-digital conversion and autocorrelation analysis. A result is extracted which is indicative of a property of the fluid, such as a height of the condensed fluid, a cavitation of the condensed fluid, and a surface perturbation of the condensed fluid. The result can be recorded, displayed, and/or transmitted to another location. One embodiment of the system has been constructed and tested based on a general purpose programmable computer using instructions recorded in machine-readable non-volatile memory. | 04-17-2014 |
20140222354 | COMPUTATION METHOD OF RELATIVE CARDIOVASCULAR PRESSURE - The present invention provides a method for the determination of relative pressure fields from flow-sensitive data, the method comprising: applying a finite element discretisation to the Pressure Poisson Equation (PPE): | 08-07-2014 |
20140278155 | QUARTZ RESONATOR PRESSURE TRANSDUCERS AND METHODS OF OPERATION - A cylindrical quartz crystal transducer that exhibits a low probability of twinning, and uses a combination of resonator signal inputs at the B-mode and C-mode frequencies to calculate resonator temperature. Crystallographic orientations are disclosed where combinations of B-mode and C-mode resonant frequencies exist that are sufficiently independent of pressure to enable accurate calculation of temperature under transient conditions. Such a transducer is usable at higher pressures and temperatures than conventional quartz pressure transducers. Furthermore, because the structure allows a choice of crystallographic orientation, other characteristics of the transducer, such as increased pressure sensitivity and activity dip-free operation, may be optimized by varying crystallographic orientation. | 09-18-2014 |
20150066397 | Detecting a Sediment Condition in a Conduit - In one embodiment, a flow-estimation processor receives one or more flow-depth measurements with each flow-depth measurement having been taken at a respective time. The processor calculates a respective estimated flow rate for each of the times based on the corresponding flow-depth measurement and one or more flow-estimation parameters each set to a respective initial value. The processor outputs the estimated flow rates for presentation via a user interface, and receives via the user interface one or more updated values corresponding respectively to a flow-estimation parameter. The processor calculates an updated estimated flow rate for each of the one or more times, such that each respective updated estimated flow rate is calculated based on the received updated values. The processor then outputs the updated estimated flow rates for presentation via the user interface. | 03-05-2015 |
20150094964 | VISCOELASTICITY MEASUREMENT METHOD AND VISCOELASTICITY MEASUREMENT DEVICE - A linear elastic modulus measurement method and a linear elastic modulus measurement device can reduce external disturbances such as oscillation and electrical noise, and accurately and stably measure the linear elastic modulus of a linear elastic body even in the case where damping due to viscous stress is large. The measurement device computes the oscillation velocity (dx/dt) of an oscillator from the displacement of the oscillator brought into contact with the linear elastic body, and multiplies dx/dt by a linear velocity feedback gain to generate a feedback control signal. The measurement device applies, to the oscillator, a force proportional to the oscillation velocity of the oscillator by the feedback control signal, to cause the oscillator to self-oscillate. The measurement device computes the linear elastic modulus of the linear elastic body from the frequency when the self-oscillation of the oscillator is detected and the mass of the oscillator. | 04-02-2015 |
20160025687 | NON-INVASIVE METHOD FOR MEASUREMENT OF PHYSICAL PROPERTIES OF FREE FLOWING MATERIALS IN VESSELS - Methods and apparatus for measuring physical properties of material in a vessel are provided. In one example, the method includes capturing a response to a vibration initiated by a source in mechanical communication with the vessel, generating a vibration response spectrum based on the response, and calculating at least one value of at least one physical property of the material based on at least one pre-established relationship between the at least one physical property and one or more characteristics of the vibration response spectrum. | 01-28-2016 |
20160091406 | METHOD FOR EVALUATING RANGE OF SHEAR RATE ACTING ON FLUID, AND PROGRAM AND DEVICE FOR SAME - To provide a method and an apparatus for evaluating a reachable range of a shear rate of a fluid by using a concept of a shear rate propagation constant in evaluating the properties of the fluid. The apparatus for measuring a viscosity in which a vibrator ( | 03-31-2016 |
20160097743 | METHOD FOR MEASURING THE PROPERTIES OF LIQUID BASED ON A QUARTZ CRYSTAL MICROBALANCE SENSOR - The present invention provides a method for a method for measuring the properties of liquid based on a quartz crystal microbalance sensor, which employs two measurements to obtain two frequency shifts of the QCM sensor induced by two different volume of the sample liquid. The present invention creatively established the relationship between the density and viscosity of sample liquid and the frequency shifts of QCM sensor. With present invention, the density and viscosity of sample liquid can be obtained through two frequency shifts. Comparing to the conventional liquid property measurement. The measuring procedure of present invention are more simple, and the measuring results are more accurate. Moreover, the present invention consumes less volume of sample liquid, and has the features such as online, real time and quantitative. | 04-07-2016 |
20160166766 | ACOUSTIC BASED DRUG DELIVERY MONITOR | 06-16-2016 |