Claims Analysis
Total Claims: 7
Claim 1
Independent Claim
146 words
A method of analysing vibrations of an object
comprising: generating coherent laser energy and causing
some of the laser energy to be emitted towards an object; receiving some of said emitted laser energy
which is reflected from the object; causing other of said generated laser energy to
be mixed or interfere with the laser energy reflected
from the object; generating a signal corresponding to the
interference thus caused; and analysing the signal to derive therefrom a
further signal representing the vibrations of the object; characterised in that the signal is analysed to
derive therefrom a frequency relating to the bulk
movement of said object, another signal is derived from
said signal, which is of restrictive bandwidth relative
to said signal, said restrictive bandwidth encompassing
said frequency and also encompassing the frequencies of
vibration of said object, and said further signal is
derived from said another signal.
Claim 2
Dependent Claim
65 words
A method of analysing vibrations of an object, as in
claim 1, wherein said analysis to derive the frequency
relating to the bulk movement of said object is recursive
method, wherein an estimate of the current frequency
relating to the bulk movement of the object is obtained
from one or more previous estimates of that frequency,
which estimates are themselves derived from said another
signal.
Claim 3
Dependent Claim
24 words
A method of analysing vibrations of an object, as in
claim 2, wherein said recursive method uses only
information from the immediately preceding estimate.
Claim 4
Dependent Claim
48 words
A method of analysing vibrations of an object, as in
claim 2 or 3, wherein said recursive method makes a
prediction of the frequency relating to bulk movement
within the immediately preceding estimate, and said
production is compared with the frequency corresponding
to the estimate of current movement.
Claim 5
Independent Claim
63 words
A method of analysing vibrations of an object, as in
any one of claims 2 to 4, wherein said recursive method
involves the use of any one of Kalman filters, alpha-beta
tracker techniques, path-following methods, graph-theory,
hidden-Markov models, Bayesian techniques or stochastic
resonance, at regular time intervals to modify the
current estimate of the frequency relating to the bulk
movement of the object.
Claim 6
Independent Claim
24 words
A method of analysing vibrations of an object, as in
any preceding claim , wherein said restrictive bandwidth
is of the order of ±10kHz.
Claim 7
Independent Claim
149 words
An apparatus for analysing vibrations of an object
comprising: a coherent laser source and means for directing
some of the laser energy emitted from that source towards
an object; a receiver for receiving laser energy reflected
from said object; a mixer for mixing, or causing interference
between, said reflected laser energy and other of said
generated laser energy and generating a signal from the
interference thus caused; a means for analysing the signal to derive
therefrom a further signal representing the vibrations of
the object; characterised in that said means for analysing the
signal is arranged to derive therefrom a frequency
relating to the bulk movement of said object, derives
another signal from said signal, which is of restrictive
bandwidth relative to said signal, said restrictive
bandwidth encompassing said frequency and also
encompassing the frequencies of vibration of said object,
and derives said further signal from said another signal.