Sensors with an integrated measuring system have been developed for the non-destructive testing method acoustic emission since 2016.
The initial focus was on saving cables through wireless data transmission.
The focus increasingly shifted to decentralized measuring systems, as these bring many other advantages in addition to saving cables.
An important advantage is the self-scaling of such systems.
If you look at the entire system, many parameters increase strictly linearly, such as costs, available memory, power consumption and computing power, strictly linearly with the number of sensors.
An application for a certain number of sensors only contains as much hardware as is necessary for that application.
The fifth generation of these sensor systems is now being tested.
The sensor consists of two separate housing parts, one analog and one digital.
Both parts are coupled via a magnetic pogo pin joint.
This enables the combination of analog parts with different sensor and band filter characteristics with the digital part.
In the analog part, the sensor signal is amplified and band filtered.
The logarithmic envelope is then formed to reduce the data.
In the digital part, AE parameters such as arrival time, rise time, duration, peak amplitude and energy are extracted from the envelope.
In parallel to the parameter extraction, the waveform of the envelope can be recorded.
The server-client principle enables the construction of low-priced acoustic emission systems.
The web structure takes care of high flexibility.
Further developments of the 5th generation compared to the 4th :
- Longer measuring times in battery mode,
- Additional sensor topologies,
- Replaceable analog part,
- Greater ranges in both wireless and wired operation,
- Improvements for harsh mechanical, chemical and electromagnetic environments.