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Massaad J, van Neer PLMJ, van Willigen DM, Pertijs MAP, de Jong N, Verweij MD. Measurement of Pipe and Liquid Parameters Using the Beam Steering Capabilities of Array-Based Clamp-On Ultrasonic Flow Meters. Sensors (Basel) 2022; 22:5068. [PMID: 35890749 PMCID: PMC9317834 DOI: 10.3390/s22145068] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/18/2022] [Revised: 07/02/2022] [Accepted: 07/04/2022] [Indexed: 06/15/2023]
Abstract
Clamp-on ultrasonic flow meters (UFMs) are installed on the outside of the pipe wall. Typically, they consist of two single-element transducers mounted on angled wedges, which are acoustically coupled to the pipe wall. Before flow metering, the transducers are placed at the correct axial position by manually moving one transducer along the pipe wall until the maximum amplitude of the relevant acoustic pulse is obtained. This process is time-consuming and operator-dependent. Next to this, at least five parameters of the pipe and the liquid need to be provided manually to compute the flow speed. In this work, a method is proposed to obtain the five parameters of the pipe and the liquid required to compute the flow speed. The method consists of obtaining the optimal angles for different wave travel paths by varying the steering angle of the emitted acoustic beam systematically. Based on these optimal angles, a system of equations is built and solved to extract the desired parameters. The proposed method was tested experimentally with a custom-made clamp-on UFM consisting of two linear arrays placed on a water-filled stainless steel pipe. The obtained parameters of the pipe and the liquid correspond very well with the expected (nominal) values. Furthermore, the performed experiment also demonstrates that a clamp-on UFM based on transducer arrays can achieve self-alignment without the need to manually move the transducers.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jack Massaad
- Laboratory of Medical Imaging, Department of Imaging Physics, Delft University of Technology, Lorentzweg 1, 2628 CJ Delft, The Netherlands; (P.L.M.J.v.N.); (N.d.J.); (M.D.V.)
| | - Paul L. M. J. van Neer
- Laboratory of Medical Imaging, Department of Imaging Physics, Delft University of Technology, Lorentzweg 1, 2628 CJ Delft, The Netherlands; (P.L.M.J.v.N.); (N.d.J.); (M.D.V.)
- Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO), Oude Waalsdorperweg 63, 2597 AK The Hague, The Netherlands
| | - Douwe M. van Willigen
- Electronic Instrumentation Laboratory, Department of Microelectronics, Delft University of Technology, Mekelweg 4, 2628 CD Delft, The Netherlands; (D.M.v.W.); (M.A.P.P.)
| | - Michiel A. P. Pertijs
- Electronic Instrumentation Laboratory, Department of Microelectronics, Delft University of Technology, Mekelweg 4, 2628 CD Delft, The Netherlands; (D.M.v.W.); (M.A.P.P.)
| | - Nicolaas de Jong
- Laboratory of Medical Imaging, Department of Imaging Physics, Delft University of Technology, Lorentzweg 1, 2628 CJ Delft, The Netherlands; (P.L.M.J.v.N.); (N.d.J.); (M.D.V.)
- Thorax Center, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Erasmus Medical Center, Doctor Molewaterplein 40, 3015 GD Rotterdam, The Netherlands
| | - Martin D. Verweij
- Laboratory of Medical Imaging, Department of Imaging Physics, Delft University of Technology, Lorentzweg 1, 2628 CJ Delft, The Netherlands; (P.L.M.J.v.N.); (N.d.J.); (M.D.V.)
- Thorax Center, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Erasmus Medical Center, Doctor Molewaterplein 40, 3015 GD Rotterdam, The Netherlands
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Brambilla M, Combi L, Matera A, Tagliaferri D, Nicoli M, Spagnolini U. Sensor-Aided V2X Beam Tracking for Connected Automated Driving: Distributed Architecture and Processing Algorithms. Sensors (Basel) 2020; 20:s20123573. [PMID: 32599825 PMCID: PMC7349712 DOI: 10.3390/s20123573] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/30/2020] [Revised: 06/19/2020] [Accepted: 06/21/2020] [Indexed: 12/02/2022]
Abstract
This paper focuses on ultra-reliable low-latency Vehicle-to-Anything (V2X) communications able to meet the extreme requirements of high Levels of Automation (LoA) use cases. We introduce a system architecture and processing algorithms for the alignment of highly collimated V2X beams based either on millimeter-Wave (mmW) or Free-Space Optics (FSO). Beam-based V2X communications mainly suffer from blockage and pointing misalignment issues. This work focuses on the latter case, which is addressed by proposing a V2X architecture that enables a sensor-aided beam-tracking strategy to counteract the detrimental effect of vibrations and tilting dynamics. A parallel low-rate, low-latency, and reliable control link, in fact, is used to exchange data on vehicle kinematics (i.e., position and orientation) that assists the beam-pointing along the line-of-sight between V2X transceivers (i.e., the dominant multipath component for mmW, or the direct link for FSO). This link can be based on sub-6 GHz V2X communication, as in 5G frequency range 1 (FR1). Performance assessments are carried out to validate the robustness of the proposed methodology in coping with misalignment induced by vehicle dynamics. Numerical results show that highly directional mmW and/or FSO communications are promising candidates for massive data-rate vehicular communications even in high mobility scenarios.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mattia Brambilla
- Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informazione e Bioingegneria, Politecnico di Milano, 20133 Milan, Italy; (L.C.); (A.M.); (D.T.); (U.S.)
- Correspondence:
| | - Lorenzo Combi
- Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informazione e Bioingegneria, Politecnico di Milano, 20133 Milan, Italy; (L.C.); (A.M.); (D.T.); (U.S.)
| | - Andrea Matera
- Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informazione e Bioingegneria, Politecnico di Milano, 20133 Milan, Italy; (L.C.); (A.M.); (D.T.); (U.S.)
| | - Dario Tagliaferri
- Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informazione e Bioingegneria, Politecnico di Milano, 20133 Milan, Italy; (L.C.); (A.M.); (D.T.); (U.S.)
| | - Monica Nicoli
- Dipartimento di Ingegneria Gestionale, Politecnico di Milano, 20156 Milan, Italy;
| | - Umberto Spagnolini
- Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informazione e Bioingegneria, Politecnico di Milano, 20133 Milan, Italy; (L.C.); (A.M.); (D.T.); (U.S.)
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