Data Integration Method for Multipath Ultrasonic Flowmeter

Compared to ultrasonic flowmeters with a single sound path, multipath ultrasonic flowmeters are capable of providing more accurate mean flow velocities on a cross-section of a pipe. This is accomplished by integrating the flow velocities derived from the measurements on multiple sound paths. In this paper, we proposed a data fusion based integration method to obtain the estimation of flow velocities on a cross-section of a pipe. The multipath ultrasonic flowmeter can provide a mean fluid velocity by taking the weighted average of the measured velocities of all sound paths. Compared to the traditional integration method, in which weights are determined according to the geometrical positions of sound paths, the proposed method considers the noise in the measured velocities on individual sound paths and determines the weights according to the variances of measured velocities on individual sound paths. This leads to a fused (integrated) flow velocity with a minimum mean square error. In addition, even if certain sound paths do not work properly, the proposed method can still provide a robust estimate of flow velocity on a cross-section of a pipe.