US 12372450 B1Patent grantUnited States

Ultraprecise Contactless Acoustic Sensing

Official patent title

Hybrid free space acoustic oscillators for ultraprecision sensor applications

Arabic title: مذبذبات صوتية هجينة في الفضاء الحر لتطبيقات المستشعرات فائقة الدقة

Invention

Problem

Conventional noncontact sensors may lack sensitivity to minute changes, drift with environmental conditions, or require costly and hazardous measurement methods. A stable way to amplify small acoustic phase perturbations into readable signals is needed.

Why it matters

High-resolution, non-ionizing sensing can support safer process control, structural monitoring, environmental measurement, and material inspection across industrial and scientific settings.

Approach

The system sends acoustic waves through a free-space sample path and uses dual feedback loops, amplification, filtering, phase shifting, and frequency comparison to convert sample-induced phase changes into measurable oscillation-frequency shifts.

Who may benefit

Potential beneficiaries include industrial-sensor manufacturers, process-control companies, environmental-instrument developers, nondestructive-testing laboratories, and precision-measurement researchers.

Potential value

The architecture converts small propagation-phase variations into frequency changes and supports several feedback and detector configurations for measuring gas density, air temperature, thickness, tilt, pressure, or related properties.

Background

Many noncontact sensors infer a property from acoustic amplitude or phase along a single path. Small variations can be obscured by noise, drift, or limited readout resolution. Nuclear thickness gauges add radiation and regulatory burdens, while optical or ultrasonic alternatives may require frequent calibration or costly components. Oscillator feedback offers a way to recirculate a signal so a phase perturbation appears as a frequency shift. The disclosed hybrid architecture applies that principle to an acoustic free-space path with configurable feedback processing.

Technology overview

An acoustic transmitter and receiver face one another across a sample region. The receiver converts phase-shifted sound into electrical signals split among feedback paths. Amplifiers sustain loop gain, a bandpass filter selects the operating band, phase shifters establish and adjust oscillation, and either a spectrum detector or mixer compares the new frequency with a preset or reference frequency. Alternative circuits sum paths or adjust gain. Claims identify gas density and air temperature as example measured properties.

Potential applications

Gas-density and air-temperature sensing.
Noncontact material-thickness measurement.
Tilt, pressure, and structural monitoring.
Industrial process-control instrumentation.
Nondestructive and environmental sensing research.

Evidence-supported advantages

Uses non-ionizing acoustic signals.
Converts phase perturbations into frequency shifts.
Supports multiple feedback and detector configurations.
Can address several sample properties with one architecture.
Uses standard functional blocks such as amplifiers, filters, and mixers.

Development stage

A system architecture, circuit embodiments, and operating relationships are described; prototype calibration, measured sensitivity, resolution, drift, and application-level validation were not established in the supplied evidence. The development stage was not independently verified.

Commercial opportunity

The architecture may interest precision-sensor, process-control, and nondestructive-testing companies. Product development needs a working prototype, calibrated sensitivity and resolution, selectivity among temperature, pressure, and density effects, drift and noise characterization, environmental robustness, reference-instrument comparison, manufacturable transducer alignment, and application-specific safety and certification testing.

Patent classifications

WIPO IPC

G01N9/00Investigating or analysing materials by determining their chemical or physical properties
G01B17/02Measuring length, thickness or similar linear dimensions; angles; areas; irregularities of surfaces or contours

CPC

G01B17/02Measuring length, thickness or similar linear dimensions; angles; areas; irregularities of surfaces or contours
G01K11/22Measuring temperature or quantity of heat; thermally sensitive elements not otherwise provided for
G01N9/002Investigating or analysing materials by determining their chemical or physical properties

Inventors

First inventorMohamed Yehia Mohamed Shalaby
InventorAbdulrahman M. Shalaby

Keywords

acoustic oscillator
free-space sensing
phase shift
frequency shift
feedback loop
gas density
temperature sensor
noncontact measurement

Patent document and drawings

The patent publication is mapped to this record. Patent drawings remain within that publication; no separately cleared public media package has been supplied.