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Structured light sensing systems, as one of the most common optical-based nondestructive evaluation techniques, have been widely applied for inline pipeline inspection. The sensor can be inserted inside the pipe to generate 3D visualisation and evaluate the cracks in the materials. The precise calibration of the camera-projector measurement system is of great significance to ensure the measurement accuracy of the 3D sensing system. Conventional calibration methods for structured light sensors involve complicated and time-consuming procedures and are easily affected by ambient light. The paper presents a novel algorithm to automatically calibrate the projection module and estimate the stereo parameters between the camera and the projector. The calibration algorithm exploits the cylindrical nature of the inspected pipe to create a set of geometric constraints and automatically calibrate the sensor without the need for reference calibration points. Experimental and simulation results showed that the algorithm could successfully estimate the projector's intrinsic and extrinsic parameters by simply acquiring the data inside a cylindrical pipe with a known diameter. The proposed algorithm highly reduces the data collection time for the calibration (only 53 s), improves the accuracy, and simplifies the calibration process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Microwave-induced thermoacoustic imaging (TAI) is a hybrid imaging technique that combines electromagnetic radiation and ultrasonic waves to achieve high imaging contrast and submillimeter spatial resolution. These characteristics make TAI a good candidate to detect material anomalies that change the material electric properties without a noticeable variation in material density. Conventional pulsed TAI systems work by sending a single short pulse to the imaged target and then detecting the generated pressure signal; therefore, a very high peak power microwave pulse or data averaging is needed to produce images with a high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). In this paper, we propose to enhance the SNR of pulsed TAI systems by using non-coherent pulse compression. In this approach, a predefined pulse coded signal is used to illuminate the imaged sample and the received pressure signal is cross correlated with a template that is related to the power profile of the excitation signal. The proposed approach can be easily deployed to pulsed TAI systems without the need for major system modifications to the RF source because it only requires a timing circuit to control the triggering time of the RF pulses. In this paper, we demonstrate experimentally that the proposed approach highly improves the SNR of TAI signals and images and can be used to reduce the acquisition time by lowering the number of data averaging or reduce the required peak power from RF sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Natural gas pipeline network extends over 2.5 million miles in the united states of America. The aging of these infrastructures combined with damage from various external threats are creating safety concerns for both operators and residents in the vicinity of these pipelines. In this paper, we are presenting a miniaturized structured light based three-dimensional (3D) imaging sensor for the inspection of internal walls of plastic natural gas distribution pipelines. The sensor is an 18-mm diameter optical inspection device that can be inserted inside the pipe to provide the operator with a 3D map of the internal surface of the inspected pipe. The introduction of the 3D map simplifies the identification of damages like deformations and material loss and leads to a better evaluation of the damage severity when compared to LED assisted cameras. The sensor is also accompanied with an embedded electronic stabilization algorithm to reduce the effect of misalignment when the sensor is attached to a scanning platform, and to facilitate the registration of consecutive frames from the sensor. The algorithm exploits the geometry constraints provided by the cylindrical shape of the pipe to estimate the orientation and position of the sensor with each collected frame. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Microwave induced thermoacoustic imaging (TAI) is a hybrid imaging technique combining microwaves and ultrasound waves to achieve both superior spatial resolution and high image contrast. Here, we present results from a hybrid finite element model and an experimental setup using a microwave peak power of less than 5 kW (average power of only 4.5 W), significantly less than for comparable imaging performance in previous works. Microwave pulses with a duration less than 1 μs are used to excite ultrasound waves with a frequency higher than 1MHz. Experimental measurements show agreement with simulation results using hybrid finite element modeling capturing microwave heating and acoustic wave propagation. Simulations suggest targets with a conductivity of approximately 0.9 S/m yield the strongest thermoacoustic signatures. Both B-mode images and time-reversal based reconstructed images are obtained and clearly demonstrate the enhanced contrast and high resolution by exploiting the dielectric absorption properties of microwaves and the sub-millimeter resolution of ultrasound. The use of a time reversal algorithm on recorded data demonstrates the effectiveness of TAI for biomedical applications. Standing wave patterns are identified in targets and their relation to the target characteristics and their effect on the resulted images are investigated. The novelty of this work is in lowering the microwave average power while still being able to detect induced acoustic signals, along with developing a numerical model to provide an insight into the imaging process and analyze anomalies in image reconstruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]