A base-sequence-modulated Golay code improves the excitation and measurement of ultrasonic guided waves in long bones

Researchers are interested in using ultrasonic guided waves (GWs) to assess long bones. However, GWs suffer high attenuation when they propagate in long bones, resulting in a low SNR. To overcome this limitation, this paper introduces a base-sequence-modulated Golay code (BSGC) to produce larger amplitude and improve the SNR in the ultrasound evaluation of long bones. A 16-bit Golay code was used for excitation in computer simulation. The decoded GWs and the traditional GWs, which were generated by a single pulse, agreed well after decoding the received signals, and the SNR was improved by 26.12 dB. In the experiments using bovine bones, the BSGC excitation produced the amplitudes which were at least 237 times greater than those produced by a single pulse excitation. The BSGC excitation also allowed the GWs to be received over a longer distance between two transducers. The results suggest the BSGC excitation has the potential to measure GWs and assess long bones.