Title: An ultrasonic thickness and wave speed determination system aided by fuzzy logic

Authors: Yutaka Hata, Syoji Kobashi, Seturo Imawaki

Addresses: Division of Computer Engineering, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, Graduate School of Engineering, University of Hyogo, Hyogo, Japan. ' Division of Computer Engineering, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, Graduate School of Engineering, University of Hyogo, Hyogo, Japan. ' Ishikawa Hospital, Hyogo, Japan

Abstract: This paper proposes an ultrasonic system to determine thickness and wave speed of an object. In it, the authors newly develop a triangle probe system composed of three probes: a central probe and two side probes. The central probe straight transmits/receives ultrasonic waves and the right probe receives ultrasonic waves transmitted from the left one. In the authors| method, the triangle probe is moved to the depth direction of an object. Then, two peak intensities are revealed at the focal points of the surface and at the bottom of the object. The authors show a method to calculate the wave speed and the thickness of the objects from two focal points. In the experiment, the authors extract the two focal points aided by fuzzy logic. Then, they determine the wave speed and thickness of the object from these focal points. The experimental results on two hard phantoms show that the method can successfully determine the wave speed and the thickness of the object with high accuracy.

Keywords: fuzzy logic; thickness determination; ultrasonic system; wave speed determination; triangle probe system.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCAT.2009.024077

International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology, 2009 Vol.34 No.4, pp.257 - 263

Published online: 25 Mar 2009 *

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