Signal to incoherent noise ratio is a ubiquitous challenge across a wide range of inspection applications. A conventional solution is through data averaging, increasing the required number acquisitions per frame. This decreases inspection speed and can be prohibitively slow when used in combination with techniques such as FMC, necessitating a sacrifice in sensitivity and resolution.
Waveform coding methods, including pulse compression and aperture coding, offer an alternative, leveraging increased transmit energy to increase SNR without significantly decreasing inspection speed.
This demonstration session provides hands on experience with common coding methods, including Golay codes, Chirp compression and Hadamard aperture coding. The relative acquisition time, processing, image quality, SNR and instrumentation requirements are compared and discussed, detailing the key factors to consider when evaluating selection of these methods for a given inspection application.