• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.538-544
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• 2000

A phased array ultrasonic nondestructive inspection system is being developed to obtain images of the interior of steel structures by modifying a medical ultrasound imaging system. The medical system consists of 64 individual transceiver channels that can drive 128 array elements. Several modifications of the system were required mainly due to the change of sound speed. It was necessary to fabricate array transducers for steel structure and to obtain A-scan signal that is necessary for the nondestructive testing. Boundary diffraction wave model was used for the prediction of radiation beam field from array transducers, which provided guidelines to design array transducers. And a RF data acquisition board was fabricated for the A-scan signal acquisition along a selected un line within an image. For the proper beam forming in the transmission and reception for steel structure, delay time was controlled. To demonstrate the performance of the developed system and fabricated transducers, images of artificial specimens and A-scan signals for selected scan lines were obtained in a real time fashion.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.464-474
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• 2003

Ultrasonic imaging of 3-D structures for nondestructive evaluation must provide readily recognizable images with enough details to clearly show various flaws that may or may not be present. Typical flaws that need to be detected are miniature cracks, for instance, in metal pipes having aged over years of operation in nuclear power plants; and these sub-millimeter cracks or flaws must be depicted in the final 3-D image for a meaningful evaluation. As a step towards improving conspicuity and thus detection of flaws, we propose a pulse-echo ultrasonic imaging technique to generate various 3-D views of the 3-D object under evaluation through strategic scanning and processing of the pulse-echo data. We employ a 2-D Wiener filter that filters the pulse-echo data along the plane orthogonal to the beam propagation so that ultrasonic beams can be sharpened. This three-dimensional processing and display coupled with 3-D manipulation capabilities by which users are able to pan and rotate the 3-D structure improve conspicuity of flaws. Providing such manipulation operations allow a clear depiction of the size and the location of various flaws in 3-D.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.35-44
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• 2016

Seed viability is one of the most important parameters that is directly related with seed germination performance and seedling emergence. In this study, a hyperspectral imaging (HSI) system having a range of 1000-2500 nm was used to classify viable watermelon seeds from nonviable seeds. In order to obtain nonviable watermelon seeds, a total of 96 seeds were artificially aged by immersing the seeds in hot water ($25^{\circ}C$) for 15 days. Further, hyperspectral images for 192 seeds (96 normal and 96 aged) were acquired using the developed HSI system. A germination test was performed for all the 192 seeds in order to confirm their viability. Spectral data from the hyperspectral images of the seeds were extracted by selecting pixels from the region of interest. Each seed spectrum was averaged and preprocessed to develop a classification model of partial least square discriminant analysis (PLS-DA). The developed PLS-DA model showed a classification accuracy of 94.7% for the calibration set, and 84.2% for the validation set. The results demonstrate that the proposed technique can classify viable and nonviable watermelon seeds with a reasonable accuracy, and can be further converted into an online sorting system for rapid and nondestructive classification of watermelon seeds with regard to viability.

• 한국환경농학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.07a
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• pp.119-126
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• 2009

In recent years, research at the Environmental Microbial and Food Safety Laboratory (EMFSL), Agricultural Research Service (ARS) has focused on the development of novel image-based sensing technologies to address agro-food safety concerns, and transformation of these novel technologies into practical instrumentation for industrial implementations. The line-scan-based hyperspectral imaging techniques have often served as a research tool to develop rapid multispectral methods based on only a few spectral bands for rapid online applications. We developed a newer line-scan hyperspectral imaging platform for high-speed inspection on high-throughput processing lines, capable of simultaneous multiple inspection algorithms for different agro-food safety problems such as poultry carcass inspection for wholesomeness and apple inspection for fecal contamination and defect detection. In addition, portable imaging devices were developed for in situ identification of contamination sites and for use by agrofood producer and processor operations for cleaning and sanitation inspection of food processing surfaces. The aim of this presentation is to illustrate recent advances in the above agro.food safety sensing technologies.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
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• v.47 no.4
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• pp.995-1010
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• 2020

In this study, a multivariate analysis model of partial least square regression (PLSR) was developed to predict the moisture content of green peppers using hyperspectral imaging (HSI). In HSI, illumination is essential for high-quality image acquisition and directly affects the analytical performance of the visible near-infrared hyperspectral imaging (VIS/NIR-HSI) system. When green pepper images were acquired using a direct lighting system, the specular reflection from the surface of the objects and their intensities fluctuated with time. The images include artifacts on the surface of the materials, thereby increasing the variability of data and affecting the obtained accuracy by generating false-positive results. Therefore, images without glare on the surface of the green peppers were created using a polarization filter at the front of the camera lens and by exposing the polarizer sheet at the front of the lighting systems simultaneously. The results obtained from the PLSR analysis yielded a high determination coefficient of 0.89 value. The regression coefficients yielded by the best PLSR model were further developed for moisture content mapping in green peppers based on the selected wavelengths. Accordingly, the polarization filter helped achieve an uniform illumination and the removal of gloss and artifact glare from the green pepper images. These results demonstrate that the HSI technique with a polarized lighting system combined with chemometrics can be effectively used for high-throughput prediction of moisture content and image-based visualization.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.426-431
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• 2007

When a high-energy ultrasound propagates through a solid body that contains a crack or a delamination, the two faces of the defect do not ordinarily vibrate in unison, and dissipative phenomena such as friction, rubbing and clapping between the faces will convert some of the vibrational energy to heat. By combining this heating effect with infrared imaging, one can detect a subsurface defect in material in real time. In this paper a realtime detection of the brazing defect of thin Inconel plates using the UIR (ultrasonic infrared imaging) technology is described. A low frequency (23 kHz) ultrasonic transducer was used to infuse the welded Inconel plates with a short pulse of sound for 280 ms. The ultrasonic source has a maximum power of 2 kW. The surface temperature of the area under inspection is imaged by an infrared camera that is coupled to a fast frame grabber in a computer. The hot spots, which are a small area around the bound between the two faces of the Inconel plates near the defective brazing point and heated up highly, are observed. And the weak thermal signal is observed at the defect position of brazed plate also. Using the image processing technology such as background subtraction average and image enhancement using histogram equalization, the position of defective brazing regions in the thin Inconel plates can be located certainly.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.40 no.4
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• pp.394-408
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• 2015

Spectroscopy is an emerging technology for the quality assessment of pharmaceutical samples, from tablet manufacturing to final quality assurance. The traditional methods for the quality management of pharmaceutical tablets are time consuming and destructive, while spectroscopic techniques allow rapid analysis in a non-destructive manner. The advantage of spectroscopy is that it collects both spatial and spectral information (called hyperspectral imaging), which is useful for the chemical imaging of pharmaceutical samples. These chemical images provide both qualitative and quantitative information on tablet samples. In the pharmaceutics, spectroscopic techniques are used for a variety of applications, such as analysis of the homogeneity of powder samples as well as determination of particle size, product composition, and the concentration, uniformity, and distribution of the active pharmaceutical ingredient in solid tablets. This review paper presents an introduction to the applications of various spectroscopic techniques such as hyperspectroscopy and vibrational spectroscopies (Raman spectroscopy, FT-NIR, and IR spectroscopy) for the quality and safety assessment of pharmaceutical solid dosage forms. In addition, various chemometric techniques that are highly essential for analyzing the spectroscopic data of pharmaceutical samples are also reviewed.

• Journal of Power System Engineering
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.18-23
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• 2011

Image processing has provided powerful techniques to extract from the acoustic signals the desired information on evaluation for leakage existence, leakage rate, and searching for leakage location, etc. The imagery NDE data available can add additional and significant dimension in nondestructive evaluation(NDE) information and thus for exploiting in applications. To extract such information the use of advanced image processing techniques is much needed. In recent years, there has been much increased use of acoustic signal image processing techniques in acoustic NDE. This approach will increase the efficiency of inspection procedures and reduce inspection time. In this paper we are concerned only with This paper is concerned mainly with the use of advanced image processing techniques in valve leakage detection and advanced image restoration and enhancement methods, which attempt to evaluate promptly by a visualization method the acoustic sources while detecting the valve leakage.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.37-43
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• 2009

Hyperspectral reflectance and fluorescence scattering have been researched recently for measuring fruit post-harvest quality and condition. And they are promising for nondestructive detection of fruit quality. The objective of this research was to develop a model, which measure the quality of apple by using hyperspectral reflectance and fluorescence. A violet laser (408 nm) and a quartz tungsten halogen light were used as light sources for generating laser induced fluorescence and reflectance scattering in apples, respectively. The laser induced fluorescence and reflectance of 'Golden Delicious' apples were measured by using a hyperspectral imaging system. Fruit firmness, soluble solids and acid content were measured using standard destructive methods. Principal component analyses were performed to extract critical information from both hyperspectral reflectance and fluorescence data and this information was then related to fruit quality indexes. The fluorescence models had poorer predictions of the three quality indexes than the reflectance models. However, the prediction models of integrating fluorescence and reflectance performed consistently better than the individual models of either reflectance or fluorescence. The correlation coefficient for fruit firmness, soluble solid content, and tillable acidity from the integrated model was 0.86, 0.75, and 0.66 respectively. Also the standard errors were 6.97 N, 1.05%, and 0.07% respectively.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.31-43
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• 2016

Applications of ultrasonic tomography to concrete structures have been reported for many years. However, practical and effective application of this tool for nondestructive assessment of internal concrete condition is hampered by time consuming transducer coupling that limits the amount of ultrasonic data that can be collected. This research aims to deploy recent developments in air-coupled ultrasonic measurements of solids, described in Part 1 of this paper set, to concrete in order to image internal inclusions. Ultrasonic signals are collected from concrete samples using a fully air-coupled (contactless) test configuration. These air coupled data are compared to those collected using partial semi-contact and full-contact test configurations. Two samples are considered: a 150 mm diameter cylinder with an internal circular void and a prism with $300mm{\times}300mm$ square cross-section that contains internal damaged regions and embedded reinforcement. The heterogeneous nature of concrete material structure complicates the application and interpretation of ultrasonic measurements and imaging. Volumetric inclusions within the concrete specimens are identified in the constructed velocity tomograms, but wave scattering at internal interfaces of the concrete disrupts the images. This disruption reduces defect detection accuracy as compared with tomograms built up of data collected from homogeneous solid samples (PVC) that are described in Part 1 of this paper set. Semi-contact measurements provide some improvement in accuracy through higher signal-to-noise ratio while still allowing for reasonably rapid data collection.