P1G-1 Signal Processing Architecture for Controlling a 2D Cylindrical Phased Array

This paper presents the digital signal processing architecture of a 2D cylindrical ultrasonic phased array, with capability of electronic scanning and 3D beam steering, which can be used for NDE applications in several fields: oil and gas industry, water distribution, sub-sea applications, etc. The processing architecture (called AMPLIA) is specifically designed for embedded ultrasonic 2D array applications, and it is able to support array transducers composed by thousands of elements. Based on standard FPGA technology, it can be defined as a modular, parallel and pipelined architecture. In combination with sigma-delta converters it provides a high degree of integration. AMPLIA is organized around a pipe-line bus that integrates a set of modules for analog and digital processing. All the structure is commanded by a special module called Interface and Control Unit (ICU). This modular configuration provides flexibility to fulfil a wide range of application requirements. A high performance with a sustained processing throughput of 40 MSamples/s is achieved. A specific application consisting on a cylindrical array with 800 elements (10 rows of 80 elements each) with capability for 3D beamforming is presented. Real time imaging and low volume are the main requirements of this system