Ultrasonic probe, in particular for manual inspections

US6641535B2 · kind B2 · utility

Assignee

• Agfa NDT GmbH · DE

Inventors

• Paul Buschke · Bad Mergentheim, DE
• Wolf-Dietrich Kleinert · Bonn, DE
• Horst Guenter Thum · Recklinghausen, DE

Key dates

• Filing date: Mar 13, 2003
• Grant date: Nov 4, 2003
• Expiry date: Mar 13, 2023

Classification

• Technology area (CPC G): Physics
• CPC primary: G01N2291/2632
• WIPO field: Measurement
• WIPO sector: Instruments

Abstract

The invention relates to an ultrasonic probe comprising: —a housing (20), which accommodates an ultrasonic transducer and has a contact surface for making contact with the surface (28) of a body (30) to be inspected; —at least one digital camera (36), which is allocated to the housing (20) and which is aligned in such a way that it registers the surface (28) of the body (30) and supplies a respective electronic image of sub-sections of the surface (28) of the body (30) at intervals; —a circuit for image processing (40), which has an image memory (42) for at least one electronic image that has been registered by the digital camera (36). Said circuit also comprises a comparator (44) that compares two electronic images of the body (30) to be inspected, registered by the digital camera (36) at different times and that determines the displacement of the housing (20) in relation to the surface (28); and a displacement memory (46), which contains the displacement of the housing (20) and the current position of the housing (20) in relation to the original location (48).