Visualization of Three-Dimensional Acoustic Streaming Flow Patterns around an Inclined Triangular Obstruction using Digital In-Line Holographic Micro-Particle Tracking Velocimetry

Acoustic Streaming is a flow phenomenon with many applications in the field of microfluidics, such as micro mixing[1, 2] and particle manipulation[3]. With the manufacturing techniques evolves, more complicated geometries can be designed for microfluidic device and 3-D acoustic streaming patterns may occurs. In this study, 3-D trajectories of particle induced by acoustic streaming around an inclined triangular obstruction in a microchannel were visualized by a volumetric tracking method using Digital Inline Holographic Microscopy (DIHM)[4-6]. The triangular obstruction has a tip angle of 20° and an inclined angle of 30°. The acoustic streaming is created under 12 kHz oscillation of a piezo plate driven by 20V voltage. Illuminated by a 450nm continuous laser, the magnified hologram of the motion of 1.79μm tracer particles was recorded by a low-cost 10X industrial microscope with a machine vision camera of 10 fps (frames per second). Using RayleighSommerfeld back-propagation method[7], particle locations was reconstructed frame by frame and 3-D tracking of individual particles was performed afterwards. The trajectories of each particle were reconstructed to reveal the vortical structure of the acoustic streaming flow. For the current system setup, the measurable range was estimated to be 550×685×840 μm3. The 3-D location reconstruction accuracy was verified with a calibration target and the location sensitivity was found to be linear throughout the measurable range. Reconstruction at different depth locations show that the dick-shaped calibration dots and the spherical polystyrene particles have different intensity profiles. The calibration dots show local minimum of intensity at the correct depth location, while polystyrene particles show local maximum of intensity instead. Resolved particle trajectories show that the acoustic streaming flows cause particles to move with 3-D spiral shaped motions near the side of the triangular obstruction, while particles away from the obstruction shows planar motions.

Measurement Range Expansion of Chromatic Confocal Probe with Supercontinuum Light Source

Confocal probes have been widely adopted in various industries owing to their depth-sectioning effects. A dual-detector differential chromatic confocal probe using a mode-locked femtosecond laser source is proposed herein, and the measurement range expansion of the probe using a supercontinuum light source is discussed. Supercontinuum light has an extremely wide spectrum. A simulation based on wave optics is performed to evaluate the detection sensitivity and measurable range by considering the chromatic aberration of the lens materials. Additionally, an experimental setup is constructed using a supercontinuum light source, and its feasibility is validated. A measurable range of 200 μm is adopted in the experiment, and three-dimensional surface profile measurements are performed. However, the developed confocal probe has not been used for surface topography measurements. Experiments are conducted to verify the performance of the developed probe.

Localization System for Indoor Mobile Robot Using Large Square-Shaped Reflective Marker

A localization system using reflective markers and a fisheye camera with blinking infrared lights is useful and safe for mobile robot navigation in an environment with coexisting humans and robots; however, it has the problems of low robustness and a small measurable range for marker detection. A large, square-shaped reflective marker, with solid and dotted edges, is proposed for more reliable localization of indoor mobile robots. It can be easily detected using Hough transform and is robust for occlusion. The coordinates of the four corners of the square-shaped marker determine the robot’s localization. Infrared lighting with a new LED arrangement is designed for a wide measurable range via brightness simulation, including the effect of observation and reflection angles. A prototype system was developed, enabling the 2D position and orientation to be detected with an accuracy of 60 mm and 3◦, respectively, within a 4 m2 area.

An Optical Frequency Domain Angle Measurement Method Based on Second Harmonic Generation

This paper proposes a new optical angle measurement method in the optical frequency domain based on second harmonic generation with a mode-locked femtosecond laser source by making use of the unique characteristic of the high peak power and wide spectral range of the femtosecond laser pulses. To get a wide measurable range of angle measurement, a theoretical calculation for several nonlinear optical crystals is performed. As a result, LiNbO3 crystal is employed in the proposed method. In the experiment, the validity of the use of a parabolic mirror is also demonstrated, where the chromatic aberration of the focusing beam caused the localization of second harmonic generation in our previous research. Moreover, an experimental demonstration is also carried out for the proposed angle measurement method. The measurable range of 10,000 arc-seconds is achieved.

A Large Measurable Range Capacitance-to-Digital Converter for Smart Humidity Sensors

This study aims to propose a capacitance-to-digital converter (CDC) based on a third-order cascade of integrators with a feed-forward (CIFF) incremental sigma-delta modulator for smart humidity sensor application. Disguised zoom-in technology was proposed to enlarge the measurable range of the CDC. The input range of the CDC was 0–388 pF. The proposed CDC was realized using 0.18 μm complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor technology. Results show that the CDC performs a 13-bit capacitance-to-digital conversion in 0.8 ms. The analog system consumes 169.7 μA from a 1.8 V supply, which corresponds to a figure of merit (FOM) of 3.0 nJ/step. The proposed CDC was combined with a HS1101 humidity sensor to demonstrate its incorporation in an overall system design. The resolution was 0.7% relative humidity (RH) over a range of 30%–90% RH.

Enhancement of the Performance and Data Processing Rate of an Optical Frequency Domain Reflectometer Distributed Sensing System Using A Limited Swept Wavelength Range

A novel optical frequency domain reflectometer (OFDR) processing algorithm is proposed to enhance the measurable range and data processing rate using a narrow swept spectrum range and reducing the time consuming of the process distributed sensing results. To reduce the swept wavelength range and simultaneously enhance strain measurable range, the local similarity characteristics of Rayleigh scattering fingerprint spectrum is discovered and a new similarity evaluation function based on least-square method is built to improve the data processing rate and sensing performance. By this method, the strain measurable range is raised to 3000 µε under a highest spatial resolution of 3 mm when the swept spectrum range is only 10 nm and the data processing rate is improved by at least 10 times. Experimental results indicate that a nonlinearity of less than 0.5%, a strain resolution of better than 10 µε, a repeatability at zero strain of below ±0.4 GHz and a full-scale accuracy is lower than 0.85 GHz under a highest spatial resolution of 3 mm can be achieved. Advantages of this method are fast processing rate, large strain measurable range, high SNR, and applicability with current OFDR systems.