ItalyOutcome summary
Michele Nunno, founder of Michele Solutions, wrote the control software for 4-channel ultrasonic modules in automatic industrial inspection plants, and a superconcentrator that buffers every acquisition.
Starting situation
The client is an Italian company in ultrasonic testing. Its four-channel ultrasonic module is built to work inside automatic inspection plants and borescopes. The hardware is the client's. Someone has to configure it, run it and read it. An instrument like this is only as good as its software: acquiring the signal, showing it clearly and producing a record the inspector can trust.
The system
- A desktop application that talks to the boards over USB and controls every channel: gates, amplitude-correction curves (DAC and TGC), thickness readings and the pulser modes (parallel, multiplexed or hybrid).
- Live views of the signal (A-scan) and of the scan map (C-scan), a diagnostic function and a log viewer for service.
- Saved configurations, printing, an Italian and an English interface, and a remote interface so that another program can drive the boards.
- A superconcentrator for the plants that run many boards together.
Implementation
The channels of the boards have no memory of their own. A superconcentrator reads the channels in real time and buffers each response once it is qualified with the encoder position, so that no acquisition is lost while the part moves through the plant. The same software synchronises several boards on a common pulse rate.
The work started in 2005 and updates were released for many years.
Results and evidence
The software is what the client's modules run on in automatic inspection plants, and the superconcentrator keeps every acquisition that the channels produce.
