Ultrasonic distance and velocity measurement using a pair of LPM signals for cross-correlation method: Improvement of Doppler-shift compensation and examination of Doppler velocity estimation

Real-time distance measurement of a moving object with high accuracy and high resolution using an ultrasonic wave is difficult due to the influence of the Doppler effect or the limit of the calculation cost of signal processing. An over-sampling signal processing method using a pair of LPM signals has been proposed for ultrasonic distance and velocity measurement of moving objects with high accuracy and high resolution. The proposed method consists of cross correlation by single-bit signal processing, high-resolution Doppler velocity estimation with wide measurement range and low-calculation-cost Doppler-shift compensation. The over-sampling cross-correlation function is obtained from cross correlation by single-bit signal processing with low calculation cost. The Doppler velocity and distance of the object are determined from the peak interval and peak form in the cross-correlation function by the proposed method of Doppler velocity estimation and Doppler-shift compensation. In this paper, the proposed method of Doppler-shift compensation is improved. Accuracy of the determined distance was improved from approximately within +/- 140 mu m in the previous method to approximately within +/- 10 mu m in computer simulations. Then, the proposed method of Doppler velocity estimation is evaluated. In computer simulations, accuracy of the determined Doppler velocity and distance were demonstrated within +/- 8.471 mm/s and +/- 13.87 mu m. In experiments, Doppler velocities of the motorized stage could be determined within +/- 27.9 mm/s. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.