NDT Measurement Display Synchronization for Alarm Events
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Solution Overview
Problem
Industrial non-destructive testing instruments face challenges in ensuring that the displayed image is coincident with alarm events due to mismatched measurement and display update rates, leading to inefficiencies and incomplete data representation.
Innovation Solution
A user-designated measurement display system that allows operators to select criteria for displaying measurement events at high acquisition rates, ensuring that alarm events are displayed synchronously with measurement intervals, using a processor with modules for user interface processing, sensor data acquisition, and display processing to manage echo data and trigger alarms based on user-defined criteria.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If the measurement rate is increased to improve scanning resolution and detection efficiency, then the probability of detecting alarm conditions improves, but the displayed image becomes desynchronized from alarm events
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an intermediary buffer memory system that stores measurement data between the high-rate measurement process and the lower-rate display update. This buffer acts as a mediator that allows the display to show the most recent alarm event data even though measurements occur at a higher rate, thus maintaining alarm-event coincidence without reducing measurement rate.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary actions by pre-processing and buffering measurement data at the high measurement rate before display update. The buffer prepares and holds the most relevant alarm event information ready for display, so when the display updates at its lower rate, it can immediately present synchronized alarm event data without waiting for the next measurement cycle.
2Loss of information
If the display image update rate is increased to match the measurement rate, then alarm event coincidence is improved, but the video processing system becomes overburdened with increased bandwidth requirements and power consumption
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts only the essential alarm event information from the high-rate measurement data stream and presents it on the display at the lower update rate. Instead of updating the entire display image at the high measurement rate, the system extracts and displays only the critical alarm-related data, significantly reducing the video processing bandwidth and power requirements while maintaining alarm event coincidence.
3Loss of information
If the measurement rate is reduced to match the display update rate, then alarm event coincidence is achieved, but the real-time measurement performance and scanning resolution deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The patent resolves the contradiction by adding a temporal dimension through the buffer system. Instead of reducing the measurement rate in time, the system maintains high-rate measurements in one time dimension while using the buffer to manage the display update in a different temporal dimension. This allows the display to present synchronized alarm data without compromising the high-rate measurement precision.
Data Source
AI summary
A user configured measurement display system and method for a non-destructive testing device and instrument (NDT/NDI) with high input data rate is disclosed. The system and the method provide the means for NDT/NDI instruments display measurement values that satisfies user designated measurement criterion occurring during any measurement time intervals (MTIs). The present disclosure overcomes the shortcomings of conventional ways of picking and displaying measurement values at fixed MTIs, by which the values truly satisfying the measurement criterion that occurs at random MTIs (other than scheduled MTIs) are often skipped.