Conceptual design and evaluation of an ultrasonic system for bottled beverages’ quality measurement and control

A conceptual design of an online ultrasonic system for bottled beverages’ quality control and monitoring is presented. The design consists of being able to measure ultrasound propagation velocities of beverages in each glass bottle without needing to know its diameter and wall thickness. This was achieved using simultaneously both ultrasound pulse/echo and thru-transmission signals. The ultrasound velocity is then correlated with the beverage’s, viscosity, which is an index of quality. The design also includes: (1) an online transducer alignment technique using a mechanism of frequency shift in spectrum of an ultrasonic pulse signal according to incident angle, and (2) a signal processing method using a slide window technique suitable for automatic separation and recognition of narrowly spaced pulse signals. Experiments were conducted to evaluate the design. Results of beverage viscosity/velocity correlation, frequency shift due to transducer alignment, and ultrasound velocity measurement in real bottles are reported.

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