Tire Tread Measurement with 2D Laser
Tire Tread Measurement with 2D Laser Automotive Tire Tread Measurement with 2D Laser Depth Why Accurate Tire Tread Measurement Matters To maximize safety and tire longevity, modern tire manufacturers are adopting 100% tire inspection systems that include tread depth measurement, defect detection, and pattern recognition. Inadequate tire tread depth can lead to reduced traction, poor braking, and potential tire failure. Surface anomalies like blistering, bubbles, or belt overlap may cause runout, road noise, or even catastrophic failure. With consumer expectations rising and regulatory standards tightening, tire OEMs and testing labs need precise, [...]
Gap Monitor Keeps Wind Turbines Running
Gap Monitor Keeps Wind Turbines Running Power Generation Wind Turbine Gap Monitoring Distance, Gap, Tolerance Description [Application Note 21218] Wind turbine production has been steadily increasing to meet growing demand for renewable energy. As power outputs and the number of installations climb, maintenance becomes ever more critical. Operators want to minimize downtime and protect against catastrophic failure. The ability to predict when maintenance will be required can go a long way to ensure these goals are met. Gap monitoring sensors from MTI Instruments help wind turbine operators predict impending [...]
Radar Altimeter
Radar Altimeter Customer Case In this RADAR application the customer has pulses coming in at 1660 Hz. For every pulse they need to capture 500 samples which, at that rate, will amount to 1.7 Megs of data every second. The experiment will be running for at least a few minutes. They would then like to log all the captured data to the PC host memory. The final requirement is for the system to be on the PCI bus. By having the system on the PCI bus, the customer can stream the data directly to the PC's memory, which is [...]
Portable Vibration/Balancing System Simplifies Jet Engine Testing
Portable Vibration/Balancing System Simplifies Jet Engine Testing Aviation/Aerospace, Power Generation Jet Engine Testing Amplitude Description [Application Note 32818-2] Overall gas turbine engine vibration may be considered the summation of vibration contributions from various moving parts within the engine. The ability to correlate vibration magnitude with specific moving parts helps engineers ascertain and correct the sources of vibration. Problem Commercial and military aviation rely on vibration analysis and trim balancing to establish such correlations. Vibration analysis detects discrepancies in rotational machine dynamics; trim balancing is used to reduce vibration amplitudes of [...]
Ultra High-Speed Radar
Ultra High-Speed Radar Customer Case This application requires the acquisition of very fast analog signals at relatively slow sample rates for a long period of time. In other words, the input bandwidth requirement is very high (1 GHz), but the sampling rate needs to be no more than 5 or 6 MSPS. The most important requirement is that the acquisition must go on, without any breaks, for many hours. The customer does not need very high dynamic range. In fact, a 4-bit A/D converter will be sufficient. The customer has already identified a 4-bit A/D chip from TRW which [...]
Push-Pull Capacitance Sensor Measures Ungrounded Targets
Push-Pull Capacitance Sensor Measures Ungrounded Targets Solar, Semiconductor Measurement of Ungrounded Targets Thickness, Metrology Description [Application Note 50318] Today’s semiconductor and solar industries drive the demand for thinner wafers to conserve silicon and fulfill new IC applications. To meet this demand, wafer fabricators seek greater dimensional control of their silicon products. Non-contacting capacitance sensors offer the precision, accuracy, and speed needed to measure flatness, thickness variation, and other critical dimensions. Typically, the standard capacitance sensor acts as one plate of a classical two-plate capacitive gap measurement scenario. The grounded target [...]
Windshield Manufacturing
Windshield Manufacturing Automotive Windshield Manufacturing Tolerances Description In order to maintain proper profile and thickness within a glass furnace the extrusion plate spacing must be maintained at a predetermined gap. Unfortunately, due to process changes and temperature swings this gap can fluctuate significantly in short periods of time. This variation causes the glass thickness to change (check out our glass thickness measurement devices to accurately measure thickness), producing uneven temperature gradients and creating potentially weak glass panels. To control this critical parameter the manufacturing process requires automated active feedback control [...]
Radar Rackmount System for Large Record Lengths
Radar Rackmount System for Large Record Lengths Customer Case The customer needs to acquire data from his radar system at a sampling rate of 1.5 MSPS for two channels (I & Q). At the moment, this data must be acquired for at least 10 seconds, but the record length may increase by almost 100 times in the future. This equipment needs to be installed in a rackmounted environment, so the host computer must have rackmount capability. An integrated monitor is also important as it eliminates the need to purchase a rack-mounted monitor. Keyboard and mouse must also be rackmountable. [...]
Cargo Container Position
Transportation Cargo Container Position Distance Description
Interfacing to Offset IF Radar Altimeter
Interfacing to Offset IF Radar Altimeter Customer Case The customer is using an offset IF radar to map forest terrain density. The equipment will be mounted in an aircraft, which will also be carrying a Global Positioning System (GPS) for reference. The plane will fly at an altitude of 10,000 feet. A 512 ns radar pulse will be sent out and a return pulse will be received about 20 uS later, from which 10,000 samples will be acquired. After the pulse is received, there will be a relatively long re-arm time of about 250 to 300 uS for the [...]