A high-speed high-resolution ultrasonic inspection machine

Ultrasonic inspection of tires has previously been performed using low frequencies in air, which results in low spatial resolution. In addition, the tire has not typically been completely inspected. The limited scanning area and scanning resolution in previous work has been the result of difficulties in acquiring and handling large data sets, difficulties in positioning transducers in a large number of locations over a complex shape, and display or interpretation of the large amount of data which would be generated in such a system. A new design is presented which combines a low-cost multiple processor design to perform motion control, data acquisition, and data transfer. The design is generally useful in a number of different nondestructive evaluation and other large-data-set data acquisition and control applications.