Transmission of Images With Ultrasonic Elastic Shear Waves on a Metallic Pipe Using Amplitude Shift Keying Protocol

Journal Article · Thu Jan 23 00:00:00 EST 2020 · IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1109/tuffc.2020.2968891· OSTI ID:1660749

Heifetz, Alexander  ^[1]; Shribak, Dmitry ^[2]; Huang, Xin ^[3]; Wang, Boyang ^[3]; Saniie, Jafar  ^[3]; Young, Jacey ^[4]; Bakhtiari, Sasan  ^[1]; Vilim, Richard B. ^[1]

---

1. Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
2. Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States); Univ. of Chicago, IL (United States)
3. Illinois Inst. of Technology, Chicago, IL (United States)
4. St. Norbert College, De Pere, WI (United States)

Transmission of information using ultrasonic elastic waves on existing metallic pipes provides an alternative communication option across physical barriers in a highly partitioned industrial complex, such as a nuclear facility. This work investigates the feasibility of the transmission of digital images over metallic pipes. Ultrasonic communication systems for transmission of images on a nuclear-grade stainless steel pipe were assembled for bench-scale demonstration. Information carriers in this system are refracted shear waves transmitted and received with piezoelectric transducers (PZTs) operating at 2-MHz nominal frequency. The refraction and propagation of ultrasonic shear waves were modeled with COMSOL software. An amplitude shift keying (ASK) communication protocol for image transmission was developed and implemented in the GNURadio software-defined radio (SDR) environment. Digital information was converted to analog ultrasonic signals using Red Pitaya electronic boards. The performance of the ASK protocol is evaluated at the output of every block in the GNURadio program by monitoring the transmission of select characters. Using the ASK communication protocol, the transmission of the 32-KB image was demonstrated at 2-Kbps bitrate across 6-ft-long stainless steel pipe. Finally, preliminary evaluation of ultrasonic communication on the piping of a nuclear facility, such as signal transmission on bent pipes, was performed with COMSOL computer simulations.

• Research Organization: Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Nuclear Energy (NE), Nuclear Energy Enabling Technologies (NEET)
• Grant/Contract Number: AC02-06CH11357
• OSTI ID: 1660749
• Journal Information: IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control, Vol. 67, Issue 6; ISSN 0885-3010
• Publisher: IEEE
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

42 ENGINEERING
amplitude shift keying (ASK)
digital images
ultrasonic transducers