Enhancing ultrasonic imaging with low transient pulse shaping

This work deals with improving the resolution of ultrasonic ranging systems by means of preshaping the transmitter drive signals to achieve low transient acoustic pulses. As ultrasonic transducers are operated at a relatively high nominal frequency and quality factor, feedforward strategy is among the most efficient means to generate the low transient acoustic pulses. In this work, a digital signal processor and a field programmable gate array synthesize the transmitter drive signal to emit low transient pulses which are then applied to the detection of surface features. Both simulation and experiment results confirm an improved spatial detection resolution due to the lower acoustic transient interference. The drive signal synthesis process is also simpler than the conventional modulation method and should result in lower cost of implementation.