On the robustness of coded excitation in ultrasonic acquisition systems
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Challinor, Connor
Cegla, Frederic
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Coded excitation has been shown to be a simple yet effective technique for improving signal quality in ultrasonic active ranging applications. Despite many reported benefits, uptake of coded excitation in industrial applications to date has been minimal. The authors speculate that this can be in part attributed to a lack of understanding of the robustness of the technique in practical use. To combat this, this paper reports on research into the main mechanisms that can introduce performance degradation and describes the effect of the two most important mechanisms, referred to as symbol asymmetry and symbol misalignment. These mechanisms lower output signal quality through the introduction of unexpected signal artifacts, as well as by reducing useful signal amplitude. We show how symbol asymmetry can be introduced through hardware imperfections and the relative degradation severity associated with different imperfection types. We similarly show how symbol misalignment can be introduced when using coded excitation in non-stationary situations. As a result, we formulate the minimum hardware requirements and inspection conditions required to correctly utilise coded excitation such that users can be confident of achieving high quality outcomes. We quantitatively simulate and experimentally verify the output signal degradation across many scenarios to identify the operating conditions that need to be satisfied to ensure that degradation does not exceed an arbitrarily chosen threshold of 40 dB (the noise floor from random noise in our experimental setup).
Date Issued
2025-11-01
Date Acceptance
2025-06-10
Citation
Ultrasonics, 2025, 155
ISSN
0041-624X
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Journal / Book Title
Ultrasonics
Volume
155
Copyright Statement
© 2025 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
License URL
Identifier
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/40627927
PII: S0041-624X(25)00163-5
Subjects
Acquisition hardware
Coded excitation
Non-stationary measurements
Ultrasonics
Publication Status
Published
Coverage Spatial
Netherlands
Article Number
107726
Date Publish Online
2025-06-24