Signal matching wavelet for ultrasonic flaw detection in high background noise

The wavelet transform (WT) is widely used in ultrasonic flaw detection (UFD) systems because of its property of multiresolution time-frequency analysis. Those traditional WT-based methods for UFD use a wavelet basis with limited types to match various echo signals (called wavelet matching signals), so it is difficult for those methods to achieve the optimal match between echo signal and wavelet basis. This results in limited detection ability in high background noise for those WT-based methods. In this paper, we propose a signal matching wavelet (SMW) method for UFD to solve this problem. Unlike traditional UFD systems, in the proposed SMW, the transmitted signal is designed to be a wavelet function for matching a wavelet basis. This makes it possible to obtain the optimal match between the echo signal and the wavelet basis. To achieve the optimal match from the aspect of energy, we derive three rules for designing the transmitted signal and selecting the wavelet basis. Further, the parameter selection in applying the proposed SMW method to a practical UFD system is analyzed. In addition, a low-rate discrete WT structure is designed to decrease the hardware cost, which facilitates the practical application of the proposed SMW. The simulation results show that the proposed SMW can efficiently detect flaws in high background noise even with SNR lower than -20 dB, outperforming the existing methods by 5 dB.