A Five-Level, 1-MHz, Class-D Ultrasonic Driver for Guided-Wave Transducer Arrays

Giannelli, Pietro; Bulletti, Andrea; Granato, Maurizio; Frattini, Giovanni; Calabrese, Giacomo; Capineri, Lorenzo

doi:10.1109/tuffc.2019.2924943

Cited by 10 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…Despite these benefits, drawbacks of high-power loss, a bulky size, and heavy weight have limited its use in modern ultrasound transducer excitation circuits. Advances in power electronics technology have led to the proposal of using switched-mode power converters for ultrasound transducer excitation [29][30][31]. A switched-mode power converter with a PWM technique has been used to generate a high-power analog waveform with low harmonic distortion, provided that the switching frequency is at least ten times that of the baseband frequency [30,32].…”

Section: Proposed Signal Generator Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For baseband frequencies lower than a few tens of kilohertz, the PWM method provides high energy efficiency and, therefore, is used widely in state-of-the-art commercial audio amplifier systems. However, for most HIFU applications, the acoustic frequency ranges from a few hundreds of kilohertz to several megahertz [9,29,33,34]. The use of a switched-mode power converter with the PWM technique would be a challenge because the switching loss of power MOSFETs, which is directly proportional to the switch-ing frequency, would significantly reduce the amplifier efficiency at switching frequency higher than a few megahertz (MHz) [2].…”

Section: Proposed Signal Generator Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Design of a High-Power Multilevel Sinusoidal Signal and High-Frequency Excitation Module Based on FPGA for HIFU Systems

et al. 2021

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High-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) is a noninvasive therapy that uses focused ultrasound to treat a part of the tissue; high temperatures can damage tissues by heat. HIFU has many applications in the field of surgery and aesthetics and is used increasingly in everyday life. In this article, we discuss the mainboard design that controls the HIFU system with the ability to create a multistep sine wave compatible with many different applications. The signal used to trigger the transducer is a sinusoidal signal with a frequency adjustable from 0.1 to 3 MHz. In addition, the power supplied to the HIFU transducer is also controlled easily by the configuration parameters installed in the control circuit board. The proposed control and design method generates a voltage signal that doubles the supply voltage, thereby reducing the current on the MOSFET. The hardware design is optimized for a surface-mounted device-type MOSFET without the need for an external heat sink. In tests, we conducted a harmonious combination of two output signals to activate the same HIFU probe. The results showed that the energy transferred to the HIFU transducer increased by 1.5 times compared to a single channel. This means that the HIFU treatment time is reduced when using this method, with absolutely no changes in the system structure.

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Section: Proposed Signal Generator Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Proposed Signal Generator Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design of a High-Power Multilevel Sinusoidal Signal and High-Frequency Excitation Module Based on FPGA for HIFU Systems

et al. 2021

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“…The SoC development of a node with passive and active mode operation poses several design issues that are related to the electronic design. The main issues are the power consumption and design of an efficient ultrasonic pulser to gain transduction efficiency in active mode [ 131 ]. Local high voltage power amplifiers or pulsers are needed to excite transducers with 10 V to 100 V amplitude excitation signals; the local availability of high voltages is generally obtained with boost DC/DC converters.…”

Section: Hardware Developments Of Wired and Wireless Sensor Network (Wsns) For Shm And Validation Testsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ultrasonic Guided-Waves Sensors and Integrated Structural Health Monitoring Systems for Impact Detection and Localization: A Review

Capineri

Bulletti

2021

Sensors

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This review article is focused on the analysis of the state of the art of sensors for guided ultrasonic waves for the detection and localization of impacts for structural health monitoring (SHM). The recent developments in sensor technologies are then reported and discussed through the many references in recent scientific literature. The physical phenomena that are related to impact event and the related main physical quantities are then introduced to discuss their importance in the development of the hardware and software components for SHM systems. An important aspect of the article is the description of the different ultrasonic sensor technologies that are currently present in the literature and what advantages and disadvantages they could bring in relation to the various phenomena investigated. In this context, the analysis of the front-end electronics is deepened, the type of data transmission both in terms of wired and wireless technology and of online and offline signal processing. The integration aspects of sensors for the creation of networks with autonomous nodes with the possibility of powering through energy harvesting devices and the embedded processing capacity is also studied. Finally, the emerging sector of processing techniques using deep learning and artificial intelligence concludes the review by indicating the potential for the detection and autonomous characterization of the impacts.

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“…In a pulse-wave Doppler system a burst of ultrasound waves of frequency F T is transmitted [13] in the fluid to be investigated by high-voltage pulsers [14] every pulse repetition interval (PRI). The ultrasonic burst travels in the medium at velocity c, and when it hits a scatterer, part of its energy is reflected towards the transducer.…”

Section: Doppler Processing Data Path Overviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

FPGA-Based Doppler Frequency Estimator for Real-Time Velocimetry

Ricci

Meacci

2020

Electronics

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In range-Doppler ultrasound applications, the velocity of a target can be measured by transmitting a mechanical wave, and by evaluating the Doppler shift present on the received echo. Unfortunately, detecting the Doppler shift from the received Doppler spectrum is not a trivial task, and several complex estimators, with different features and performance, have been proposed in the literature for achieving this goal. In several real-time applications, hundreds of thousands of velocity estimates must be produced per second, and not all of the proposed estimators are capable of performing at these high rates. In these challenging conditions, the most widely used approaches are the full centroid frequency estimate or the simple localization of the position of the spectrum peak. The first is more accurate, but the latter features a very quick and straightforward implementation. In this work, we propose an alternative Doppler frequency estimator that merges the advantages of the aforementioned approaches. It exploits the spectrum peak to get an approximate position of the Doppler frequency. Then, centered in this position, a centroid search is applied on a reduced frequency interval to refine the estimate. Doppler simulations are used to compare the accuracy and precision performance of the proposed algorithm with respect to current state of the art approaches. Finally, a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) implementation is proposed that is capable of producing more than 200 k low noise estimates per second, which is suitable for the most demanding real-time applications.

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A Five-Level, 1-MHz, Class-D Ultrasonic Driver for Guided-Wave Transducer Arrays

Cited by 10 publications

References 16 publications

Design of a High-Power Multilevel Sinusoidal Signal and High-Frequency Excitation Module Based on FPGA for HIFU Systems

Design of a High-Power Multilevel Sinusoidal Signal and High-Frequency Excitation Module Based on FPGA for HIFU Systems

Ultrasonic Guided-Waves Sensors and Integrated Structural Health Monitoring Systems for Impact Detection and Localization: A Review

FPGA-Based Doppler Frequency Estimator for Real-Time Velocimetry

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