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 1):
A method for detecting and monitoring a mechanical change 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, a baseline broadband acoustic signal along the rigid elongated structure; obtaining, with the first acoustic transducer, a first baseline transmission signal responsive to the baseline broadband acoustic signal in the first zone and obtaining, with the third acoustic transducer, a second baseline transmission signal responsive to the baseline broadband acoustic signal in the second zone; generating, with the second acoustic transducer, a monitoring broadband acoustic signal along the rigid elongated structure; obtaining, with the first acoustic transducer, a first monitoring transmission signal responsive to the monitoring broadband acoustic signal in the first zone and obtaining, with the third acoustic transducer, a second monitoring transmission signal responsive to the monitoring transmission signal in the second zone; determining a first differential transmission signal as a difference between the first monitoring transmission signal and the first baseline transmission signal; determining a second differential transmission signal as a difference between the second monitoring transmission signal and the second baseline transmission signal; and determining if the mechanical change occurred in the first zone of the elongated rigid structure based on the first differential transmission signal or if the mechanical change occurred in the second zone of the elongated rigid structure based on the second differential transmission signal.

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): 0.6504194522311646
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.5250163613530562
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.6378791431433537
- Mean Citation Score: 187.217086
- Max Citation Score: 332.70178
- Similarity Product: 268.3397170829797

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