Biomimetic Mechanosensor Array Processing for 2-D Airflow Direction and Amplitude Sensing

This paper presents a computational study and preliminary experimental results of mechanosensor arrays for 2-D airflow sensing. In particular, the analysis presented here applies to a recently developed biomimetic microelectromechanical system (MEMS) inspired by the array of airflow-sensitive hairs found on the crickets' cercus. Based on the maximum-likelihood principle, an estimator that allows reconstruction of both the airflow direction and the airflow velocity amplitude is derived. Given this algorithm, different topologies of hair arrays are investigated in terms of sensitivity for measurement errors. In addition, it is analyzed how redundancy, i.e., the presence of many more than the minimum number of hairs, in the array can be used for lessening the effect of measurement noise. Multiple types of hardware failure common in biological and artificial array systems, as well as the occurrence of saturation, are analyzed, and it is shown how redundancy again increases the robustness of the sensor. Experimental results are shown to validate the theoretical model and its assumptions.      

An instrumentation system using combined sensing strategies for online mass flow rate measurement and particle sizing

Online concurrent measurement of mass flow rate and size distribution of particles in a pneumatic suspension is desirable in many industries. This paper presents the basic principle of and initial results from a novel instrumentation system that uses a combination of electrostatic and digital imaging sensors in order to achieve these goals. An inferential approach is adopted for the mass flow measurement of particles where velocity and volumetric concentration of particles are measured independently. The velocity of particles is determined by cross-correlating two signals derived from a pair of electrostatic sensors, while the volumetric concentration of particles is obtained using a novel digital imaging sensor, which also provides particle size distribution data. The basic principles and limits of operation of the imaging sensor are discussed and explained. Results obtained from a pneumatic conveyor system are presented that show good performance of the system for both mass flow metering (accurate to about /spl plusmn/4%) and particle sizing (reliable to around /spl plusmn/0.5%). A particle size distribution result is also included, and the insensitivity of particle sizing to changes in velocity and concentration is assessed. In general, the results obtained are encouraging, and the system shows great promise.     

Quantification of multiple bioagents with wireless, remote-query magnetoelastic microsensors

This paper presents a micromagnetoelastic sensor array for simultaneously monitoring multiple biological agents. Magnetoelastic sensors, made of low-cost amorphous ferromagnetic ribbons, are analogous and complementary to piezoelectric acoustic wave sensors, which track parameters of interest via changes in resonance behavior. Magnetoelastic sensors are excited with magnetic ac fields, and, in turn, they generate magnetic fluxes that can be detected with a sensing coil from a distance. As a result, these sensors are highly attractive, not only due to their small size and low cost, but also because of their passive and wireless nature. Magnetoelastic sensors have been applied for monitoring pressure, temperature, liquid density, and viscosity, fluid How velocity and direction, and with chemical/biological responsive coatings that change mass or elasticity, various biological and chemical agents. In this paper, we report the fabrication and application of a six-sensor array for simultaneous measurement of Escherichia coli O157:H7, staphylococcal enterotoxin B, and ricin. In addition, the sensor array also monitors temperature and pH so the measurements are independent from these two parameters.     

矢量线阵二维波达方位估计的方法

声矢量传感器南声压传感器和质点振速传感器组成,它可以空间共点、时间同步测量声场的声压标量和振速矢量信息。钏对声压线阵无法同时分辨目标的方位角和俯仰角,而三维矢量传感器线阵会带来成本的增加和工程应用上的困难．利用二维矢量传感器组成的直线阵对目标的二维波达方位进行联合估计,详细推导了矢量阵MUSIC算法的数学表达式,并着重对矢量线阵在三维坐标不同轴上时对方位估计的影响进行了研究。仿真结果表明二维矢量线阵布放在水平的X轴或Y轴上时存在方位模糊．而布放在垂直的Z轴上时可以实现全空间无模糊定向,且对双目标也有较高的分辨率。     

Fiber Bragg grating flow sensors powered by in-fiber light

This paper presents an active fiber Bragg grating temperature and flow sensor based on self-heated optical hot wire anemometry. The grating sensors are directly powered by optical energy carried by optical fibers. In-fiber diode laser light at 910 nm was leaked out from the fiber and absorbed by the surrounding metallic coating to raise the temperature and change the background refractive index distribution of the gratings. When the diode laser is turned off, the grating is used as a temperature sensor. When the diode laser is turned on, the resonance wavelength and spectral width change of the self-heated grating sensor is used to measure the gas flow velocity. The grating flow sensors have been experimentally evaluated for different grating length and input laser power. The grating flow sensors have demonstrated a 0.35- m/s sensitivity for nitrogen flow at atmosphere pressure.     

Smart MEMS Flow Sensor: Theoretical Analysis and Experimental Characterization

This paper presents analytical and experimental studies of a new microelectromechanical system (MEMS) smart flow sensor for the measurement of gas flow. The flow sensor has an array of curved-up cantilever beams that are surface-micromachined with two layers of deposition under two sets of different process parameters. The differential residual stress between the two layers of the polysilicon deposition causes the beams to curve upward from the substrate surface when the sacrificial layer is released. Each beam of the array of beams of different lengths vibrates successively as the flow rate increases, enabling more accurate sensing and identification of range of flow rates based on the vibration characteristics, thus making this a smart sensor design. Design and fabrication of these sensors are discussed. Experiments were conducted on this MEMS flow sensors to characterize the deflection of the curved cantilever beams with respect to flow rates. In addition, backflow tests were also conducted separately. Results of the analytical study are presented to investigate the cause of vibration of beams when subjected to flow. Finite-element analyses of vibration of the sensors comply with the experimental observation. Based on the analysis of fundamental natural frequencies, possible arrangement for the distribution of lengths of the beams is proposed to enhance its functionality as a sensor. Future work and plan of the on-board capacitive metrology and other practical issues are discussed     

Laser Doppler field sensor for high resolution flow velocity imaging without camera

In this paper we present a laser sensor for highly spatially resolved flow imaging without using a camera. The sensor is an extension of the principle of laser Doppler anemometry (LDA). Instead of a parallel fringe system, diverging and converging fringes are employed. This method facilitates the determination of the tracer particle position within the measurement volume and leads to an increased spatial and velocity resolution compared to conventional LDA. Using a total number of four fringe systems the flow is resolved in two spatial dimensions and the orthogonal velocity component. Since no camera is used, the resolution of the sensor is not influenced by pixel size effects. A spatial resolution of 4 microm in the x direction and 16 microm in the y direction and a relative velocity resolution of 1x10(-3) have been demonstrated up to now. As a first application we present the velocity measurement of an injection nozzle flow. The sensor is also highly suitable for applications in nano- and microfluidics, e.g., for the measurement of flow rates.     

Simulation and Fabrication of a Convective Gyroscope

In this paper, we present the simulation and fabrication of the gas gyroscope. The gas flow inside the hermetically packed sensor is simulated by utilizing 3-D transient compressible flow analysis. The pump working principle and the effect of the Coriolis acceleration on the laminar jet are validated by both analytical formulas and experiments. The sensor utilizes a new sensing element consisting of a thermistor heated by an interior heater, which is independently power-supplied. The sensor performance can be adjusted by the applied voltage on the heater. Both heater and thermistor are optimized in terms of thermal stress. The effect of thermal stress in a p-type silicon thermistor reduces the performance of sensor by 9.5%. The sensor has been calibrated and the role of the heater is verified.      

3-D flow velocity vector estimation with a triple-beam lens transducer-experimental results

Current commercial ultrasound blood flow measurement systems only measure the axial component of the true blood flow velocity vector. In order to overcome this limitation, a technique which tracks blood cell scatterers as they move between three ultrasound beams has been developed. With this technique, the entire 3-D blood flow velocity vector can be estimated. Previous work has presented the theory behind the technique, lens transducer design and construction, as well as results of computer simulations and preliminary experimental results. This work presents the first experimental results obtained with a prototype system for continuous, fully developed flow in a flow phantom under a wide range of flow rates and flow directions. The results indicate that the accurate measurement of the 3-D flow velocity vector using this technique is possible.     

Multiplexed flow cytometric sensing of blood electrolytes in physiological samples using fluorescent bulk optode microspheres

Polymeric bulk optode microsphere ion sensors in combination with suspension array technologies such as analytical flow cytometry may become a power tool for measuring electrolytes in physiological samples. In this work, the methodology for the direct measurement of common blood electrolytes in physiological samples using bulk optode microsphere sensors was explored. The simultaneous determination of Na(+), K(+), and Ca(2+) in diluted sheep blood plasma was demonstrated for the first time, using a random suspension array containing three types of mixed microsphere bulk optodes of similar size, fabricated from the same chromoionophore without additional labeling. Sodium ionophore X, potassium ionophore III, and grafted AU-1 in poly(butyl acrylate) were the ionophores used in the bulk optode microsphere ion sensors for Na(+), K(+), and Ca(2+), respectively, in combination with the cation-exchanger NaTFPB (sodium tetrakis-[3,5-bis(trifluoromethyl)phenyl]borate) and the same concentration of the chromoionophore ETH 5294 (9-(di-ethylamino)-5-octadecanoylimino-5H-benzo[a]phen-oxazine) in plasticized poly(vinyl chloride). Excellent reproducibility was achieved for the sensing of potassium ions. The effect of sample pH was relatively small at near-physiological pH and followed theoretical predictions, yet the sample temperature was found to influence the sensor response to a larger extent. Multiplexed ion sensing was achieved by taking advantage of the chemical tunability of the sensor response, adjusting the sensor compositions so that the three types of ion sensors responded with distinct levels of protonation of the chromoionophore. Consequently, three well-resolved peaks were simultaneously observed in the single-channel histogram during the multiplexed calibration as well as in the subsequent measurement of the three cations in 10-fold-diluted sheep plasma. The assigned peak positions corresponded very well to the physiological range of the measured ions.     

总温传感器动态特性的方向敏感性研究

讨论了气流方向对一种机载总温传感器动态特性的影响，发现气流偏角对传感器的动态特性有很大的影响，首次提出了总温传感器动态特性的方向敏感性概念。本文分析了其原因，并指出在设计、生产和使用过程中控制气流偏角的大小，否则将破坏传感器的动态性能。这一结论也适用于与结构类型相似的其它总温传感器。     

基于磁流体独有特性的各种潜在传感器

详细分析磁流体所具有的磁通门原理、粘度智能性、液体流动性、可浸泡性、磁光效应等各种独有特性,探讨基于上述特性的潜在传感机理及应用方向,将上述特性单独或组合使用,将可以开发出各类新型磁流体传感器,具有用于倾斜、速度、加速度、体积、流量、非磁性体或磁流体密度、磁场以及磁流体磁化强度等传感的潜在可能性,对磁流体传感器研究具有指导意义.     

Stable and unbiased flow turbulence estimation from pulse echo ultrasound

A new method for stable and unbiased flow turbulence estimation has been developed for medical ultrasonic color flow imaging. Conventional turbulence estimates from a finite number of transmitted pulses could be biased, unreliable, and erroneous. We found that a conventional method cannot provide quantitative estimates of variance of flow velocity. We propose a new approach for flow turbulence estimation that is based on analysis of the flow velocity vectors. The new method estimates the variance of the flow velocity and provides reliable estimates for flow turbulence. Numerical examples, computer simulations, and experiments using a flow phantom demonstrate that the new method can estimate variance of flow velocity accurately and without bias. This work also reports a complete derivation in the time domain for both unbiased velocity and turbulence estimations. The results include two velocity estimation equations agreeing with the 1-D and 2-D autocorrelation methods derived from the frequency domain. The results indicate that the new method for flow turbulence is particularly useful when the 2-D autocorrelation method is used for color flow imaging. The new method also appears to be able to detect low turbulence; therefore, it may be useful for diagnosing abnormalities such as minor stenoses and valvular jets.     

Maximum likelihood blood velocity estimator incorporating properties of flow physics

The aspect of correlation among the blood velocities in time and space has not received much attention in previous blood velocity estimators. The theory of fluid mechanics predicts this property of the blood flow. Additionally, most estimators based on a cross-correlation analysis are limited on the maximum velocity detectable. This is due to the occurrence of multiple peaks in the cross-correlation function. In this study a new estimator (CMLE), which is based on correlation (C) properties inherited from fluid flow and maximum likelihood estimation (MLE), is derived and evaluated on a set of simulated and in vivo data from the carotid artery. The estimator is meant for two-dimensional (2-D) color flow imaging. The resulting mathematical relation for the estimator consists of two terms. The first term performs a cross-correlation analysis on the signal segment in the radio frequency (RF)-data under investigation. The flow physic properties are exploited in the second term, as the range of velocity values investigated in the cross-correlation analysis are compared to the velocity estimates in the temporal and spatial neighborhood of the signal segment under investigation. The new estimator has been compared to the cross-correlation (CC) estimator and the previously developed maximum likelihood estimator (MLE). The results show that the CMLE can handle a larger velocity search range and is capable of estimating even low velocity levels from tissue motion. The CC and the MLE produce incorrect velocity estimates due to the multiple peaks, when the velocity search range is increased above the maximum detectable velocity. The root-mean square error (RMS) on the velocity estimates for the simulated data is on the order of 7 cm/s (14%) for the CMLE, and it is comparable to the RMS for the CC and the MLE. When the velocity search range is set to twice the limit of the CC and the MLE, the number of incorrect velocity estimates are 0, 19.1, and 7.2% for the CMLE, CC, and MLE, respectively. The ability to handle a larger search range and estimating low velocity levels was confirmed on in vivo data.     

基于大靶面光幕靶的两类六光幕阵列测量原理

弹丸着靶坐标和飞行速度以及飞行方向角是外弹道测试中必测参数,本文针对四幕光幕靶和双光幕测速系统的不足,采用六个大靶面光幕靶,构造出了两类六光幕阵列结构.由作者首次提出的六幕光幕靶是文中所提基本结构的变形.所提六光幕阵列能同时完成着靶坐标、速度和速度方向三类参数的同时测试,是一类六光幕阵列的基本机构,其他结构可以通过光幕面的旋转平移得到.文中给出了两种六光幕阵列测量公式的详细推导.提出的六光幕阵列也可以用作自动报靶系统中的传感器.     

A new time-domain narrowband velocity estimation technique for Doppler ultrasound flow imaging. II. Comparative performance assessment

For pt.I see ibid., vol.45, no.4, pp.939-54 (1998). The statistical performance of the new 2-D narrowband time-domain root-MUSIC blood velocity estimator described previously is evaluated using both simulated and flow phantom wideband (50% fractional bandwidth) ultrasonic data. Comparisons are made with the standard 1-D Kasai estimator and two other wideband strategies: the time domain correlator and the wideband point maximum likelihood estimator. A special case of the root-MUSIC, the "spatial" Kasai, is also considered. Simulation and flow phantom results indicate that the root-MUSIC blood velocity estimator displays a superior ability to reconstruct spatial blood velocity information under a wide range of operating conditions. The root-MUSIC mode velocity estimator can be extended to effectively remove the clutter component from the sample volume data. A bimodal velocity estimator is formed by processing the signal subspace spanned by the eigenvectors corresponding to the two largest eigenvalues of the Doppler correlation matrix. To test this scheme, in vivo common carotid flow complex Doppler data was obtained from a commercially available color flow imaging system. Velocity estimates were made using a reduced form of this data corresponding to higher frame rates. The extended root-MUSIC approach was found to produce superior results when compared to both 1- and 2-D Kasai-type estimators that used initialized clutter filters. The results obtained using simulated, flow phantom, and in vivo data suggest that increased sensitivity as well as effective clutter suppression can be achieved using the root-MUSIC technique, and this may be particularly important for wideband high frame rate imaging applications.     

Microhotplate Temperature Sensor Calibration and BIST

In this paper we describe a novel long-term microhotplate temperature sensor calibration technique suitable for Built-In Self Test (BIST). The microhotplate thermal resistance (thermal efficiency) and the thermal voltage from an integrated platinum-rhodium thermocouple were calibrated against a freshly calibrated four-wire polysilicon microhotplate-heater temperature sensor (heater) that is not stable over long periods of time when exposed to higher temperatures. To stress the microhotplate, its temperature was raised to around 400 °C and held there for days. The heater was then recalibrated as a temperature sensor, and microhotplate temperature measurements were made based on the fresh calibration of the heater, the first calibration of the heater, the microhotplate thermal resistance, and the thermocouple voltage. This procedure was repeated 10 times over a period of 80 days. The results show that the heater calibration drifted substantially during the period of the test while the microhotplate thermal resistance and the thermocouple-voltage remained stable to within about plus or minus 1 °C over the same period. Therefore, the combination of a microhotplate heater-temperature sensor and either the microhotplate thermal resistance or an integrated thin film platinum-rhodium thermocouple can be used to provide a stable, calibrated, microhotplate-temperature sensor, and the combination of the three sensor is suitable for implementing BIST functionality. Alternatively, if a stable microhotplate-heater temperature sensor is available, such as a properly annealed platinum heater-temperature sensor, then the thermal resistance of the microhotplate and the electrical resistance of the platinum heater will be sufficient to implement BIST. It is also shown that aluminum- and polysilicon-based temperature sensors, which are not stable enough for measuring high microhotplate temperatures (>220 °C) without impractically frequent recalibration, can be used to measure the silicon substrate temperature if never exposed to temperatures above about 220 °C.     

Directional synthetic aperture flow imaging

A method for flow estimation using synthetic aperture imaging and focusing along the flow direction is presented. The method can find the correct velocity magnitude for any flow angle, and full color flow images can be measured using only 32 to 128 pulse emissions. The approach uses spherical wave emissions with a number of defocused elements and a linear frequency-modulated pulse (chirp) to improve the signal-to-noise ratio. The received signals are dynamically focused along the flow direction and these signals are used in a cross-correlation estimator for finding the velocity magnitude. The flow angle is manually determined from the B-mode image. The approach can be used for both tissue and blood velocity determination. The approach was investigated using both simulations and a flow system with a laminar flow. The flow profile was measured with a commercial 7.5 MHz linear array transducer. A plastic tube with an internal diameter of 17 mm was used with an EcoWatt 1 pump generating a laminar, stationary flow. The velocity profile was measured for flow angles of 90 and 60 degrees. The RASMUS research scanner was used for acquiring radio frequency (RF) data from 128 elements of the array, using 8 emissions with 11 elements in each emission. A 20-micros chirp was used during emission. The RF data were subsequently beamformed off-line and stationary echo canceling was performed. The 60-degree flow with a peak velocity of 0.15 m/s was determined using 16 groups of 8 emissions, and the relative standard deviation was 0.36% (0.65 mm/s). Using the same setup for purely transverse flow gave a standard deviation of 1.2% (2.1 mm/s). Variation of the different parameters revealed the sensitivity to number of lines, angle deviations, length of correlation interval, and sampling interval. An in vivo image of the carotid artery and jugular vein of a healthy 29-year-old volunteer was acquired. A full color flow image using only 128 emissions could be made with a high-velocity precision.     

A Cross-Type Thermal Wind Sensor With Self-Testing Function

A 2-D smart flow sensor with self-testing function was designed, fabricated and tested in this paper. It is composed of cross-structure heaters and four symmetrically located sensing parts. When the flow angle changes in the clockwise direction, the temperature differences among the four parts, namely Mode 1 given by T₁₃(T₂₄) and Model 2 given by T₁₂(T₁₄) will be Sine(Cosine) functions of wind direction. Further study shows that the magnitude of mode 1 is 1.414 times that of Mode 2, and the phase of Mode 2 leads Mode 1 by 45°. By using the fixed phase gap between the two modes, the self-test function can be realized without additional components. In order to achieve a high sensitivity and robust sensor, thermal insulated substrate was introduced to fabricate calorimetric flow sensor instead of silicon wafers. The proposed sensor was fabricated on the Pyrex7740 substrate using single liftoff process. Finally, a wind tunnel test was carried out in constant power (CP) mode, and the test results show reasonable agreement with the simulation curves.