Improving autoencoder-based unsupervised damage detection in uncontrolled structural health monitoring under noisy conditions

Structural health monitoring is widely utilized in outdoor environments,especially under harsh conditions,which can introduce noise into the monitoring system.Therefore,designing an effective denoising strategy to enhance the performance of guided wave damage detection in noisy environments is crucial.This paper introduces a local temporal principal component analysis(PCA)reconstruction approach for denoising guided waves prior to implementing unsupervised damage detection,achieved through novel autoencoder-based reconstruction.Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed denoising method significantly enhances damage detection performance when guided waves are contaminated by noise,with SNR values ranging from 10 to-5 dB.Following the implementation of the proposed denoising approach,the AUC score can elevate from 0.65 to 0.96 when dealing with guided waves corrputed by noise at a level of-5 dB.Additionally,the paper provides guidance on selecting the appropriate number of components used in the denoising PCA reconstruction,aiding in the optimization of the damage detection in noisy conditions.

Low-Voltage IGZO Field-Effect Ultraviolet Photodiode

In the era of Internet of Things(Io Ts),an energy-efficient ultraviolet(UV)photodetector(PD)is highly desirable considering the massive usage scenarios such as environmental sterilization,fire alarm and corona discharge monitoring.So far,common self-powered UV PDs are mainly based on metal-semiconductor heterostructures or p–n heterojunctions,where the limited intrinsic built-in electric field restricts further enhancement of the photoresponsivity.In this work,an extremely low-voltage field-effect UV PD is proposed using a gatedrain shorted amorphous IGZO(a-IGZO)thin film transistor(TFT)architecture.A combined investigation of the experimental measurements and technology computer-aided design(TCAD)simulations suggests that the reverse current(ⅠR)of field-effect diode(FED)is highly related with the threshold voltage(Vth)of the parental TFT,implying an enhancement-mode TFT is preferable to fabricate the field-effect UV PD with low dark current.Driven by a low bias of-0.1 V,decent UV response has been realized including large UV/visible(R_(300)/R_(550))rejection ratio(1.9×10^(3)),low dark current(1.15×10^(-12)A)as well as high photo-to-dark current ratio(PDCR,~10^(3))and responsivity(1.89 A/W).This field-effect photodiode provides a new platform to construct UV PDs with well-balanced photoresponse performance at a low bias,which is attractive for designs of large-scale smart sensor networks with high energy efficiency.

Highly sensitive and stable probe refractometer based on configurable plasmonic resonance with nano-modified fiber core

A dispersion model is developed to provide a generic tool for configuring plasmonic resonance spectral characteristics.The customized design of the resonance curve aiming at specific detection requirements can be achieved.According to the model,a probe-type nano-modified fiber optic configurable plasmonic resonance(NMF-CPR)sensor with tip hot spot enhancement is demonstrated for the measurement of the refractive index in the range of 1.3332-1.3432 corresponding to the low-concentration biomarker solution.The new-type sensing structure avoids excessive broadening and redshift of the resonance dip,which provides more possibilities for the surface modification of other functional nanomaterials.The tip hot spots in nanogaps between the Au layer and Au nanostars(AuNSs),the tip electric field enhancement of AuNSs,and the high carrier mobility of the WSe_(2)layer synergistically and significantly enhance the sensitivity of the sensor.Ex-perimental results show that the sensitivity and the figure of merit of the tip hot spot enhanced fiber NMF-CPR sensor can achieve up to 2995.70 nm/RIU and 25.04 RIU^(−1),respectively,which are 1.68 times and 1.29 times higher than those of the conventional fiber plasmonic resonance sensor.The results achieve good agreements with numerical simulations,demonstrate a better level compared to similar reported studies,and verify the correctness of the dispersion model.The detection resolution of the sensor reaches up to 2.00×10^(−5)RIU,which is obviously higher than that of the conventional side-polished fiber plasmonic resonance sensor.This indicates a high detection accuracy of the sensor.The dense Au layer effectively prevents the intermediate nanomaterials from shedding and chemical degradation,which enables the sensor with high stability.Furthermore,the terminal reflective sensing structure can be used as a practical probe and can allow a more convenient operation.

Compact TE-pass polarizer based on lithium-niobate-on-insulator assisted by indium tin oxide and silicon nitride

An indium tin oxide(ITO) and silicon nitride(Si_(3)N_(4)) assisted compact TE-pass waveguide polarizer based on lithiumniobate-on-insulator is proposed and numerically analyzed.By properly designing the ITO and Si_(3)N_(4) assisted structure and utilizing the epsilon-near-zero effect of ITO,the TM mode is strongly confined in the ITO layer with extremely high loss,while the TE mode is hardly affected and passes through the waveguide with low loss.The simulation results show that the polarizer has an extinction ratio of 22.5 dB and an insertion loss of 0.8 dB at the wavelength of 1.55 μm,and has an operating bandwidth of about 125 nm(from 1540 nm to 1665 nm) for an extinction ratio of>20 dB and an insertion loss of<0.95 dB.Moreover,the proposed device exhibits large fabrication tolerances.More notably,the device is compact,with a length of only 7.5 μm,and is appropriate for on-chip applications.

Fault Diagnosis and Separation for a Distributed Rotary-laser Scanning System

The wMPS is a laser-based measurement system used for large scale metrology.However,it is susceptible to external factors such as vibrations,which can lead to unreliable measurements.This paper presents a fault diagnosis and separation method which can counter this problem.To begin with,the paper uses simple models to explain the fault diagnosis and separation methods.These methods are then mathematically derived using statistical analysis and the principles of the wMPS.A comprehensive solution for fault diagnosis and separation is proposed,considering the characteristics of the wMPS.The effectiveness of this solution is verified through experimental observations.It can be concluded that this approach can detect and separate false observations,thereby enhancing the reliability of the wMPS.

Improved calibration method for displacement transformation coefficient in optical and visual measurements

Optical and visual measurement technology is used widely in fields that involve geometric measurements,and among such technology are laser and vision-based displacement measuring modules(LVDMMs).The displacement transformation coefficient(DTC)of an LVDMM changes with the coordinates in the camera image coordinate system during the displacement measuring process,and these changes affect the displacement measurement accuracy of LVDMMs in the full field of view(FFOV).To give LVDMMs higher accuracy in the FFOV and make them adaptable to widely varying measurement demands,a new calibration method is proposed to improve the displacement measurement accuracy of LVDMMs in the FFOV.First,an image coordinate system,a pixel measurement coordinate system,and a displacement measurement coordinate system are established on the laser receiving screen of the LVDMM.In addition,marker spots in the FFOV are selected,and the DTCs at the marker spots are obtained from calibration experiments.Also,a fitting method based on locally weighted scatterplot smoothing(LOWESS)is selected,and with this fitting method the distribution functions of the DTCs in the FFOV are obtained based on the DTCs at the marker spots.Finally,the calibrated distribution functions of the DTCs are applied to the LVDMM,and experiments conducted to verify the displacement measurement accuracies are reported.The results show that the FFOV measurement accuracies for horizontal and vertical displacements are better than±15μm and±19μm,respectively,and that for oblique displacement is better than±24μm.Compared with the traditional calibration method,the displacement measurement error in the FFOV is now 90%smaller.This research on an improved calibration method has certain significance for improving the measurement accuracy of LVDMMs in the FFOV,and it provides a new method and idea for other vision-based fields in which camera parameters must be calibrated.

Exploration and mitigation of protrusion behavior in Ga-ion doped h-BN memristors

Using hexagonal boron nitride(h-BN)to prepare resistive switching devices is a promising strategy.Various doping methods have aroused great interest in the semiconductor field in recent years,but many researchers have overlooked the various repetitive anomalies that occur during the testing process.In this study,the basic electrical properties and additive protrusion behavior of Ga-ion-doped h-BN memristors at micro–nanoscale during the voltage scanning process are investigated via atomic force microscopy(AFM)and energy dispersive spectroscopy.The additive protrusion behavior is subjected to exploratory research,and it is concluded that it is caused by anodic oxidation.An approach is proposed that involves filling the AFM chamber with nitrogen gas to improve the stability of memristor testing,and this method provides a solution for enhanced testing stability of memristors.

Review of low timing jitter mode-locked fiber lasers and applications in dual-comb absolute distance measurement

Passively mode-locked fiber lasers emit femtosecond pulse trains with excellent short-term stability. The quantum-limited timing jitter of a free running femtosecond erbium-doped fiber laser working at room temperature is considerably below one femtosecond at high Fourier frequency. The ultrashort pulse train with ultralow timing jitter enables absolute time-of-flight measurements based on a dual-comb implementation, which is typically composed of a pair of optical frequency combs generated by femtosecond lasers. Dead-zone-free absolute distance measurement with sub-micrometer precision and kHz update rate has been routinely achieved with a dual-comb configuration, which is promising for a number of precision manufacturing applications, from large step-structure measurements prevalent in microelectronic profilometry to three coordinate measurements in large-scale aerospace manufacturing and shipbuilding. In this paper, we first review the sub-femtosecond precision timing jitter characterization methods and approaches for ultralow timing jitter mode-locked fiber laser design. Then, we provide an overview of the state-of-the-art dual-comb absolute ranging technology in terms of working principles, experimental implementations, and measurement precisions. Finally, we discuss the impact of quantum-limited timing jitter on the dual-comb ranging precision at a high update rate. The route to highprecision dual-comb range finder design based on ultralow jitter femtosecond fiber lasers is proposed.

Dynamic phase assembled terahertz metalens for reversible conversion between linear polarization and arbitrary circular polarization

If a metalens integrates the circular polarization(CP)conversion function,the focusing lens together with circular-polariz-ing lens(CPL)in traditional cameras may be replaced by a metalens.However,in terahertz(THz)band,the reported metalenses still do not obtain the perfect and strict single-handed CP,because they were constructed via Pancharatnam-Berry phase so that CP conversion contained both left-handed CP(LCP)and right-handed CP(RCP)components.In this paper,a silicon based THz metalens is constructed using dynamic phase to obtain single-handed CP conversion.Also,we can rotate the whole metalens at a certain angle to control the conversion of multi-polarization states,which can simply manipulate the focusing for incident linear polarization(LP)THz wave in three polarization conversion states,in-cluding LP without conversion,LCP and RCP.Moreover,the polarization conversion behavior is reversible,that is,the THz metalens can convert not only the LP into arbitrary single-handed CP,but also the LCP and RCP into two perpen-dicular LP,respectively.The metalens is expected to be used in advanced THz camera,as a great candidate for tradi-tional CPL and focusing lens group,and also shows potential application in polarization imaging with discriminating LCP and RCP.

Demodulation System for Fiber Bragg Grating Sensors Using Digital Filtering Technique

A discrimination measurement method and demodulation technique for fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors were presented using digital filtering technique. The system can control a tunable fiber Fabry-Perot filter with sawtooth wave voltage generated by digital clock to interrogate FBG sensors. Using the analogue digital converter (ADC), the reflected FBG signals were sampled with synchronous digital clock. With the aid of digital matched filtering technique, the sampled FBG signals were processed to obtain the maximum signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and the Bragg wavelength shift from the FBG signals was recovered. The results demonstrate that this system has a scanning range of 1 520 nm-1 575 nm,and the wavelength detection accuracy is less than 2 pm with 1.5 Hz scanning frequency.

Terahertz spectrum clustering of traditional Chinese medicine based on first derivative characteristics

In order to deal with the unclear absorption peak caused by the absorption peak overlap of traditional Chinese medicine(TCM)and other mixtures,a method of three unsupervised clustering algorithms as K-means,K-medoids and Fuzzy C-means(FCM)combined with the first derivative characteristics of terahertz absorption spectrum,is proposed to perform the terahertz spectra clustering of Sanchi and other three kinds of TCM compared with their easily-confused products(ECPs).These three unsupervised clustering methods complement the scope of the supervised learning classification method.The first derivative of the spectrum could amplify the difference in the absorption coefficient with different substances,so that the obvious absorption peak can be revealed.Experiments shows that these three clustering algorithms can achieve good results by combining the origin absorption coefficient with its first-order derivative as the characteristic data,and among which K-means does the best with the accuracy of95.32%.Compared with pure absorption coefficient data clustering,the accuracy in this study has been significantly improved,especially for the non-absorption-peak TCM classification.And the accuracy of K-means algorithm is improved by5.38%.Besides,clustering algorithms in this study have strong anti-interference ability to the error data.

Parallel Spectral-Domain Optical Coherence Tomography for Non-Scattering Object Imaging

The parallel spectral-domain optical coherence tomography（PSDOCT） is described for highspeed optical coherence tomography（OCT） without lateral scanning. In this setup, the self-elimination of auto-correlation（AC） interference algorithm was used for eradicating the AC interference and ghost images. However, when performed in free space OCT, this algorithm still generated a weak DC component. The algorithm was improved by adding the background intensity part to compensate for the mutual interference between object and reference arms. The results demonstrate that the DC component can be eradicated. Compared with conventional QCT and complex Fourier-domain optical coherence to- mography, the advantages of PSDOCT with the improved algorithm in free space are that it has no moving parts to generate consecutive phase shift, the structure of the object can be reconstructed immediately and automatically, and the speed is approximately 16 times faster than those of the other two in the same case.

Deep-Hole Inner Diameter Measuring System Based on Non-contact Capacitance Sensor

A precise aperture measuring system of small deep holes with capacitance sensors is presented. Based on the working principle of non-contact capacitance sensors, influence of the edge effect of gauge head is studied, and one capacitance sensor for measuring the aperture of the small blind holes or through holes is introduced. The system is composed of one positioning device, one aperture measuring capacitance sensor, one measuring circuit, and software. This system employs visual CCD and two-dimensional mic...

Blind Separation of Speech Signals Based on Wavelet Transform and Independent Component Analysis

Speech signals in frequency domain were separated based on discrete wavelet transform (DWT) and independent component analysis (ICA). First, mixed speech signals were decomposed into different frequency domains by DWT and the subbands of speech signals were separated using ICA in each wavelet domain; then, the permutation and scaling problems of frequency domain blind source separation (BSS) were solved by utilizing the correlation between adjacent bins in speech signals; at last, source signals were reconstructed from single branches. Experiments were carried out with 2 sources and 6 microphones using speech signals at sampling rate of 40 kHz. The microphones were aligned with 2 sources in front of them, on the left and right. The separation of one male and one female speeches lasted 2.5 s. It is proved that the new method is better than single ICA method and the signal to noise ratio is improved by 1 dB approximately.

Realtime Vision-Based Surface Defect Inspection of Steel Balls

In the proposed system for online inspection of steel balls, a diffuse illumination is developed to enhance defect appearances and produce high quality images. To fully view the entire sphere, a novel unfolding method is put forward based on geometrical analysis, which only requires one-dimensional movement of the balls and a pair of cameras to capture images from different directions. Moreover, a realtime inspection algorithm is customized to improve both accuracy and efficiency. The precision and recall of the sample set were 87.7% and 98%, respectively. The average time cost on image processing and analysis for a steel ball was 47 ms, and the total time cost was less than 200 ms plus the cost of image acquisition and balls' movement. The system can sort 18 000 balls per hour with a spatial resolution higher than 0.01 mm.

Efficient doping modulation of monolayer WS_2 for optoelectronic applications

Transition metal dichalcogenides(TMDCs) belong to a subgroup of two-dimensional(2 D) materials which usually possess thickness-dependent band structures and semiconducting properties. Therefore, for TMDCs to be widely used in electronic and optoelectronic applications, two critical issues need to be addressed, which are thickness-controllable fabrication and doping modulation of TMDCs. In this work, we successfully obtained monolayer WS2 and achieved its efficient doping by chemical vapor deposition and chemical doping, respectively. The n-and p-type dopings of the monolayer WS2 were achieved by drop coating electron donor and acceptor solutions of triphenylphosphine(PPh3) and gold chloride(AuCl_3), respectively, on the surface, which donates and captures electrons to/from the WS2 surface through charge transfer, respectively. Both doping effects were investigated in terms of the electrical properties of the fabricated field effect transistors. After chemical doping, the calculated mobility and density of electrons/holes are around 74.6/39.5 cm^2 · V^(-1) ·s^(-1)and 1.0 x 10^(12)/4.2 x 10^(11) cm^(-2), respectively. Moreover, we fabricated a lateral WS2 p-n homojunction consisting of nondoped n-type and p-doped p-type regions, which showed great potential for photodetection with a response time of 1.5 s and responsivity of 5.8 A/W at V_G = 0 V and V_D = 1 V under 532 nm light illumination.

Effect of terahertz pulse on gene expression in human eye cells

In recent years, the advances in terahertz applications have stimulated interest in the biological effects associated with this frequency range. We study the gene expression profile in three types of cells exposed to terahertz radiation,i.e., human ARPE-19 retinal pigment epithelial cells, simian virus 40-transformed human corneal epithelial cells, and human MIO-M1 Müller cells. We find that the gene expression in response to heat shock is unaffected, indicating that the minimum temperature increases under controlled environment. The transcriptome sequencing survey demonstrates that 6-hour irradiation with a broadband terahertz source results in specific change in gene expression and also the biological functions that are closely related to these genes. Our results imply that the effect of terahertz radiation on gene expression can last over 15 hours and depends on the type of cell.

Flexible Calibration Method for 3D Laser Scanner System

In this paper, a flexible high-precision calibration method suitable for industrial field was proposed. The complexity of the coordinate transformation was simplified by choosing the camera coordinate system as the unified reference coordinate system. A flexible planar calibration pattern was introduced to the calibration process, which can be arbitrarily placed and from which the known feature points can be extracted to construct other unknown feature points. With the known intrinsic parameters, the laser projector plane equation was fitted by the multi-noncollinear points, which were acquired through the principle of triangulation and the projective invariance of cross ratio. With this method, the strict alignment and multiple times of coordinate transformation can be avoided. Experimental results showed that the arithmetic mean of the root mean square(RMS) error of distance was 0.000 7 mm.

Comparison of enhancement techniques based on neural networks for attenuated voice signal captured by flexible vibration sensors on throats

Wearable flexible sensors attached on the neck have been developed to measure the vibration of vocal cords during speech.However,highfrequency attenuation caused by the frequency response of the flexible sensors and absorption of high-frequency sound by the skin are obstacles to the practical application of these sensors in speech capture based on bone conduction.In this paper,speech enhancement techniques for enhancing the intelligibility of sensor signals are developed and compared.Four kinds of speech enhancement algorithms based on a fully connected neural network(FCNN),a long short-term memory(LSTM),a bidirectional long short-term memory(BLSTM),and a convolutional-recurrent neural network(CRNN)are adopted to enhance the sensor signals,and their performance after deployment on four kinds of edge and cloud platforms is also investigated.Experimental results show that the BLSTM performs best in improving speech quality,but is poorest with regard to hardware deployment.It improves short-time objective intelligibility(STOI)by 0.18 to nearly 0.80,which corresponds to a good intelligibility level,but it introduces latency as well as being a large model.The CRNN,which improves STOI to about 0.75,ranks second among the four neural networks.It is also the only model that is able to achieves real-time processing with all four hardware platforms,demonstrating its great potential for deployment on mobile platforms.To the best of our knowledge,this is one of the first trials to systematically and specifically develop processing techniques for bone-conduction speed signals captured by flexible sensors.The results demonstrate the possibility of realizing a wearable lightweight speech collection system based on flexible vibration sensors and real-time speech enhancement to compensate for high-frequency attenuation.

A combined virtual impactor and field-effect transistor microsystem for particulate matter separation and detection

Ambient suspended particulate matter(PM)(primarily with particle diameter 2.5m or less,i.e.,PM2.5)can adversely affect ecosystems and human health.Currently,optical particle sensors based on light scattering dominate the portable PM sensing market.However,the light scattering method has poor adaptability to different-sized PM and adverse environmental conditions.Here,we design and develop a portable PM sensing microsystem that consists of a micromachined virtual impactor(VI)for particle separation,a thermophoretic deposition chip for particle collection,and an extended-gate field-effect transistor(FET)for particle analysis.This system can realize on-site separation,collection,and analysis of aerosol particles without being influenced by environmental factors.In this study,the design of the VI is thoroughly analyzed by numerical simulation,and mixtures of different-sized silicon dioxide(SiO2)particles are used in an experimental verification of the performance of the VI and FET.Considering the low cost and compact design of the whole system,the proposed PM analysis microsystem has potential for PM detection under a wide range of conditions,such as heavily polluted industrial environments and for point-of-need outdoor and indoor air quality monitoring.