Model based separation of transmitted and received signal for single transducer distance measurement applications

Simultaneous transmitting and receiving (STaR) enhances the utilization of single transducer ultrasound measurement systems. In distance measurement applications the dead zone can be reduced to nearly zero, independent of the transmitted signal. So it is possible to transmit codedsignals to identify different sensors without increasing the minimum distance. The electrical transducer signal consists of the electrical transmitted and received signal. A separation of these two signals can be done with a mathematical model of the electrical system. For this purpose it is necessary to digitize the electrical transducer signal. Due to the relative small amplitude of the received signal compared to the transmitted signal amplitude, a high resolution analog to digital converter (ADC) is needed. This leads to high requirements for the ADC. The necessary resolution limits the sample rate of the ADC. By down mixing the transducer signal using a coherent quadrature demodulation (CQD), as used in many high frequency ultrasound applications, the sample rate of the ADC can be reduced. In this contribution an airborne ultrasound distance measurement system with reduced dead zone is used to analyze the effects of this concept to the signal conditioning, system identification and system performance. The approach is compared with a system without CQD and an ADC with a lower resolution but a higher sample rate. By analyzing the pros and cons of both systems the usability of a CQD based system for a STaR application is evaluated. The distance measurement system used for the experiments is based on a 40 kHz airborne ultrasonic transducer. A gyrator based transmit amplifier delivers a system bandwidth of about 10 kHz. In the experiments, coded transmitted signals are used to measure the distance to a metal reflector. The main objectives are short distances between 0 mm and 200 mm. Here a separation of transmitted and received signal is necessary. The reflector distance is calculated by a cross correlation between transmitted and received signal.