Advanced composite structural parts are continually expanding in aircraft industry. Automatic NDI of such parts must fulfill very strict specifications, especially related to quality of images and inspection speed. Multi-channel operation and digital signal processing provide a good solution to overcome such inspection demands. In this paper a distributed architecture for automatic NDI by ultrasound is presented. A central computer can drive several multi-channel remote systems (R-SENDAS1), which are located near the transducers. Each R-SENDAS makes, at a global rate of 10 Msamples/s, digital processing of ultrasonic (UT) signals for SNR enhancement, resolution improvement and data reduction. Processing algorithms can be on line configured for through-transmission or pulse-echo techniques. Data reduced containing all the relevant information for the evaluation task, are transmitted to the central computer through a 5Mb/s, point to point, serial communication line. The central computer, free from UT attention, is dedicated to other tasks, such as movement control of the inspecting robot, UT image display, etc.
1 "SENDAS" stands from the spanish "Sistema de END de Arquitectura Segmentada", and "R" means "Remote".