Imaging

Rapid progress in array sensor technology means that they have now become a crucial component of many imaging systems used in radar sensing, sonar, medical diagnostics and NDE. In a similar fashion to an optical lens, the array forms an aperture which can focus and steer a beam in space.

CURRENT BEAMFORMING PROJECTS:

Advanced ultrasonic array inspection

Imaging beyond the Born Approximation: a physical approach 

If imaging required less data, it would enable faster throughput, improved performance in restricted access situations and simpler, cheaper hardware. The information from images enables damage to be accurately quantified within engineering components, avoiding the need to choose between excessive conservatism and unpredicted failures. While primarily focused on NDE (non-destructive evaluation), the applications of this spread to areas including medicine, geophysics and security.

Current Limited Data Imaging Projects:

Guided Wave Tomography 

Limited data CT of Turbine Blades

Radiography of sub-sea pipelines

Full-Waveform Inversion of Guided-Wave Measurements

Automating Defect Visibility Assessment in Radiographs and Sophisticated Film Noise Modelling

From radioastronomy to optical microscopy the resolution of an image is limited by diffraction as demonstrated by Lord Rayleigh more than a century ago. Recent progress in near-field microscopy has shown that the diffraction limit can be broken leading to what is known as super resolution.

Current Super Resolution Projects:

Imaging beyond the Born Approximation: a physical approach

Sub-wavelength characterisation of defects in inaccessible regions using guided waves

Super resolution subsurface sensing 

Integrated Ultrasonic Imaging for Inspection of Near-Surface Defects in Safety-Critical Components 

 Super Resolution Array Imaging of Small Embedded Defects within Safety-Critical Components

Whether it is a cancer mass inside the human body to be detected or the hot core of our planet to be studied, tomography can provide a unique insight into the subsurface world. By measuring the perturbation induced by the presence of an object on the free propagation of waves or particles, a map of a target material property across a slice of the object is revealed.

Current Tomography Projects:

Guided wave tomography for thickness mapping

Imaging beyond the Born Approximation: a physical approach

Super resolution subsurface imaging 

Radiography of sub-sea pipelines

Guided Wave Tomography