Accelerating Ultrasonic Guided-Wave Measurements via SNR Enhancement Using Coded Excitation: An Experimental Investigation

Conventional excitation signals used in ultrasonic measurements, such as the one-cycle pulse, produce waveforms that experience significant attenuation and dispersion during propagation in highly attenuative materials, resulting in a low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and unreliable signal interpretation. Coded excitation is a well-established technique for improving the SNR; however, its practical benefit for ultrasonic guided-wave measurements under low-voltage and limited averaging conditions has not been systematically quantified. This paper presents an experimental investigation of coded excitations for accelerating ultrasonic guided-wave data acquisition through SNR improvement. A one-cycle pulse is compared with Barker-coded and complementary Golay-coded excitations over a wide range of excitation voltages (0.5–10 V) and averaging numbers (1–40). Guided waves are generated using piezoelectric excitation and measured using laser Doppler vibrometry, ensuring repeatable and coupling-independent measurements. The results show that the SNR achieved with Barker-coded excitations using fewer than ten averages is comparable to that obtained with a one-cycle pulse using forty averages. The 16-bit complementary Golay codes achieve a comparable SNR while requiring fewer than five averages. These findings demonstrate that coded excitations can significantly reduce the number of data acquisition cycles in guided-wave measurement, offering a practical pathway toward faster and more energy-efficient ultrasonic measurement systems.