PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 15964967
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2018-04
Publication Date: 2018-10
Patent Classification: ["073", "592000"]

Abstract:
Methods for detection, monitoring, and determination of location of changes in rigid structures with arbitrarily complex geometries are described. Implementations include locating acoustic transducers that generate and receive acoustic signals at multiple locations along a surface of the rigid structure, wherein longitudinal spacing between the transducer locations define measurement zones. Acoustic signals with chosen amplitude-time-frequency characteristics excite multiple vibration modes in the structure within each zone. Small mechanical changes in the inspection zones lead to scattering and attenuation of broadband acoustic signals, which are detectable as changes in received signal characteristics as part of a through-transmission technique. Additional use of short, narrowband pulse acoustic signals as part of a pulse-echo technique allows determination of the relative location of the mechanical change within each zone based on the differential delay profiles.

Claim (Index 2):
The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:\n generating, with the second acoustic transducer, a baseline narrow-band pulse acoustic signal along the elongated rigid structure; obtaining, with the first acoustic transducer, a first baseline response signal responsive to the baseline narrow-band pulse acoustic signal in the first and second zones and obtaining, with the third acoustic transducer, a second baseline response signal responsive to the baseline narrow-band pulse acoustic signal in the second and first zones; generating, with the second acoustic transducer, a monitoring narrow-band pulse acoustic signal along the elongated rigid structure; obtaining, with the first acoustic transducer, a first monitoring response signal responsive to the baseline narrow-band pulse acoustic signal in the first and second zones and obtaining, with the third acoustic transducer, a second monitoring response signal responsive to the baseline narrow-band pulse acoustic signal in the second and first zones; determining a first differential response signal as a difference between the first monitoring response signal and the first baseline response signal; determining a second differential response signal as a difference between the second monitoring response signal and the second baseline response signal; generating a first differential delay profile as a function of the first differential response signal as compared with the second differential response signal; generating a second differential delay profile as a function of the second differential response signal as compared with the first differential response signal; and determining the relative location of the mechanical change within the first zone or the second zone based on the first differential delay profile and the second differential delay profile.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 20.0
- Percentile: 91.0
- Lexical Diversity: 1.64706
- Patent Class: 73.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: open
- Component Type: 1
- Foreign Priority: False
- Related Applications: ['15751429', '15666328', '15603156', '13485317', '14432970']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.6504165252522099
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.526631703810702
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.6380380431080591
- Mean Citation Score: 187.217086
- Max Citation Score: 332.70178
- Similarity Product: 250.64991534569145

Labels:
- Claim Label 101: 1
- Claim Label 102: 1
- Claim Label 103: 1
- Claim Label 112: 1
- Combined Label: 1
- Label 101 Adjusted: 1

Dataset: test