Synchronizing Over A Wide Sampling Speed Range
Synchronizing Over A Wide Sampling Speed Range Customer Case The client has set up an experiment where he needs to generate a stimulus signal and apply it to a He-Ne Laser with some polarizing optics. The response signal is a measurement of the Faraday effect. The signal is noisy and requires averaging over a very long time. The stimulus and response must be synchronized over a wide frequency range. For synchronization, the application requires a wide band of sampling speed from, 1 KS/s to 50 MS/s. GaGe Case Solution While GaGe's CompuScope 14100 provides the required digitizer performance, it [...]
Aircraft Vibration Analysis and Measurement Techniques GalleryAircraft Vibration Analysis and Measurement Techniques
Brand-MTI, Industry-Aerospace, Industry-Compliance Testing, Industry-Government/Military, Industry-Manufacturing, Industry: Transportation, Knowledge Center-MTI, News-MTI-PBS, Whitepapers-MTI, Z-REPUB, z1
Aircraft Vibration Analysis and Measurement Techniques
Aircraft engine vibration is a critical indicator of engine health and overall flight safety. While some level of vibration in aircraft is expected during normal operations, excessive or abnormal vibrations often signal underlying mechanical issues that demand immediate attention. With modern jet engines becoming more complex, real-time vibration monitoring and precise balancing tools are essential for both aircraft maintenance teams and aviation diagnostics specialists. Aircraft vibration measurement tools detect and quantify these issues, enabling maintenance teams to take corrective actions before minor imbalances escalate into major faults. Types of Aircraft Vibrations There are two main categories of aircraft vibrations: [...]
How Capacitive Measurement Can Help Reduce Packaging Waste
Product packaging is often made of lightweight polymeric foams or plastic sheets and films. These materials are relatively inexpensive, but manufacturers still want to minimize waste and maximize yields. Across high volumes of low-cost materials, even a small per-unit savings can become significant, especially as the price of petroleum – a key ingredient in many polymers – continues to rise. For companies with environmental sustainability efforts, there are other important considerations as well. The excessive use of packaging materials can contribute to environmental pollution, especially with polymers that are slow to degrade. Yet, materials such as plastic sheets and [...]
Time Resolved Spectroscopy of Protein Crystals
Time Resolved Spectroscopy of Protein Crystals Customer Case The customer is involved in Time Resolved Spectroscopy of protein crystals. This involves shooting a laser onto the protein crystals and measuring the pulses generated by the crystals (as they are projected out of the sample) and their decay over time. Due to the very noisy nature of the return signals, it is essential to average many pulses in order to recover the pulse shape and measure the decay. The decay takes place over many tens of milliseconds, so it is necessary to acquire very long records (in the order of [...]
Hyper Remote Laser Sensor
Hyper Remote Laser Sensor Customer Case The customer is at the prototype stage for building a hyper remote sensor which will fly over the ocean and be able to see 100 to 200 feet below the surface. The sensor is being designed in order to determine the composition of the ocean and the ocean floor. This remote sensor will be extremely useful in the detection of pollution and studying the way pollution is being distributed by ocean currents. It will also be useful to the military (navy) for creating mine-finding systems. A deep blue laser will be used to [...]
Laser Induced Fluorescence (LIF)
Laser Induced Fluorescence (LIF) Customer Case A customer has developed a breakthrough technique for the application of laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) detection to high performance liquid chromatography, capillary e lectrophoresis, sequencing and microbial analysis. The technique involves using fluorescence decay curves at multiple wavelengths simultaneously, leading to true 3-D fluorescence spectroscopy (i.e., fluorescence intensity as a function of wavelength and delay time relative to pulsed excitation). They have a requirement to increase the laser pulse repetition frequency (PRF) from 20-50 pulses per second to 500-1000 pulses per second. Basically, they want to collect and time resolve the fluorescence signal for [...]
Optical Spectroscopy
Optical Spectroscopy Customer Case A customer who is completing his doctorate in Chemistry at the California Institute of Technology has identified the need to measure fast optical signals using fast photo-detectors. The signal pulse width is as short as 2ns. Signals will be acquired at a 1KHz repetition rate, with a record length of 1,000 to 10,000 data points. GaGe Case Solution The CompuScope 82G, an 8-bit, 2GS/s A/D and Scope card for PCI Bus, is the best solution for this customer. With relatively small record sets, the customer is able to keep up with the 1KHz Pulse Repeat [...]
Kinetics of Protein Dynamics
Kinetics of Preotein Dynamics Customer Case The customer is measuring kinetics of protein dynamics with a time scale of between a few nanoseconds and about a hundred milliseconds. The customer's two response signals occur after a few-nanosecond-pulse excitation that repeats at a rate of 1-10Hz. This requires a bandwidth from DC to a few hundred MHz, sampling speed of about 1-2GS/s, and processing time for one acquisition that is less than 1-0.1secs. An analog signal of about 10-30mV comes from a Photo-Multiplier Tube (PMT) or a photo-diode with a trans-impedance pre-amplifier. The customer is currently using a couple of [...]
Non-Contact Displacement Sensors for Detection and Measurement
Non-contact displacement sensors are designed to detect or measure physical properties such as linear displacement, thickness, proximity, and distance without physically touching the target. By emitting various forms of energy, such as capacitance, fiber optic, or laser triangulation, these sensors capture highly accurate readings without physically touching the object. This contrasts with traditional contact sensors, which rely on direct mechanical contact to gauge displacement or other physical properties. Benefits of Non-Contact vs. Contact Displacement Sensors Compared to contact sensors, non-contact displacement sensors offer faster response times, higher sampling rates, and minimal interference with the object being measured. They are [...]
Radioactive Nuclear-Decay Detection
Radioactive Nuclear-Decay Detection Customer Case The customer has a requirement for PC-based waveform digitizer cards to digitize shaped pulses derived from nuclear-decay detectors. These pulses vary in their rate (frequency of occurrence) and amplitude. Their shape is approximately Gaussian with a full-width at half the maximum amplitude (FWHM) of 3-5 microseconds. The characterization of each pulse is critical for the accurate and precise determination of the activity of radioactive materials. These materials have very low count-rates (0.02 pulses per minute) to relatively high count-rates (>1000 pulses per minute). Important to the measurement process are the speed and reliability of [...]