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 14):
A method for detecting and monitoring of an anomalous feature in an elongated rigid structure, the method comprising:\n locating a first acoustic transducer at a first location along a surface of the rigid structure; locating a second acoustic transducer at a second location along the surface of the rigid structure; locating a third acoustic transducer at a third location along the surface of the rigid structure, wherein the second location is between the first location and the third location, a longitudinal spacing between the first location and the second location define a first zone, and a longitudinal spacing between the second location and the third location define a second zone; generating, with the second acoustic transducer, multiple broadband acoustic signals along the rigid elongated structure; obtaining, with the first acoustic transducer and the second acoustic transducer, multiple transmission signals responsive to the broadband acoustic signals; determining if an anomalous feature exists in the first zone or the second zone based on a detected change in the transmission signals; generating, with the second acoustic transducer, multiple narrow-band signals along the elongated rigid structure; obtaining, with the first acoustic transducer, a first baseline response signal and a first monitoring response signal responsive to the narrow-band signals; obtaining, with the third acoustic transducer, a second baseline response signal and a second monitoring response signal responsive to the monitoring narrow-band signals; generating, with a delay profile generation logical circuit, multiple differential delay profiles as a function of differences between the first and second baseline response signals and the first and second monitoring response signals; and determining the relative location of the mechanical change within the first zone or the second zone based on the differential delay profiles.

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): 0.6504170292344025
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.5263334292542415
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.6380086692363864
- Mean Citation Score: 187.217086
- Max Citation Score: 332.70178
- Similarity Product: 253.91706147770404

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