Echo signal envelope fitting based signal processing methods for ultrasonic gas flow-meter

Abstract

The echo signal of the ultrasonic gas flow-meter is difficult to locate, and the computation of signal processing methods proposed by others is extensive which affects the meter’s real-time performance. Aiming at solving these problems the echo signal envelopes under different flow rates are analyzed. And three kinds of signal processing methods based on echo signal envelope fitting are proposed. The shape of the echo signal remains the “approximate spindle shape” as the flow rate increases, and the envelope gradient of the middle parts of the upper envelope’s rising section and the lower envelope’s falling section remains the same at different flow rates, so the mathematical models of the two sections are established to obtain the envelope gradient curves of the two sections. With the envelope gradient curves, the ranges of envelope and peak points that linearly distributed are obtained. The least squares fitting is performed on those peak points to obtain two feature straight lines for respectively representing the upper envelope’s rising section and the lower envelope’s falling section. According to the spatial characteristics of the feature straight lines, the points on the feature straight lines are selected as the feature points for quickly locating the echo signal. According to the offline verification and comparison, the best one of three kinds of signal processing methods is selected, and realized on the hardware system of the two-channel ultrasonic gas flow-meter. The transmitter of two-channel ultrasonic gas flow-meter is developed based on FPGA & DSP dual core structure. It utilizes the parallel processing capacity and logic control ability of FPGA to realize the controlling of the high-speed ADC & DAC and the storage of the data. At the same time, it adopts the high-speed computing capacity of DSP to implement the digital signal processing method. The gas flow calibration experiments were carried out in a national accredited testing agency to verify the effectiveness of the signal processing methods and system. The experimental results show that the improved signal processing method based on echo signal upper and lower envelope fitting can quickly and accurately locate the echo signal. And the measurable range of the ultrasonic gas flow meter based on this signal processing method is broadened to 10 m3/h to 1,300 m3/h, and the turndown ratio is broadened to 1:130.