Estimation of ultrasonic flight time based on SHADE algorithm and extended kalman filtering

Abstract Traditional methods of using ultrasound to measure oxygen concentration have the issue of inaccuracy and susceptibility to noise interference when measuring the time of flight (TOF) of ultrasonic echo signals. A proposed algorithm for ultrasonic parameter estimation, utilizing an asymmetric Gaussian model, aims to enhance the precision and reliability of TOF estimation, aiming to reduce the influence of noise interference. The algorithm combines an improved Self-Adaptive Differential Evolution (SHADE) algorithm based on successful historical records with an Extended Kalman Filter (EKF). The improved SHADE algorithm controls the degree of mutation strategy greediness during the mutation operation based on the number of iterations, thereby enhancing the algorithm’s iteration speed. Then, the obtained solution is used as the initial value for the EKF to estimate the model parameters, thus addressing the issue of EKF’s dependency on accurate initial values to obtain precise outputs. Through simulation and experimental measurements of ultrasonic oxygen concentration, several commonly used parameter estimation algorithms are compared with the proposed SHADE-EKF algorithm. Results demonstrate that the SHADE-EKF algorithm exhibits superior performance in estimating the TOF of ultrasonic waves.