The Boeing Company
System and method for high speed low noise in-process hyperspectral non-destructive evaluation for rapid composite manufacturing

Abstract:

A method may include scanning a surface of a composite workpiece with multiple electromagnetic pulses, each of the multiple electromagnetic pulses being associated with a respective location on the surface of the composite workpiece. The method may further include, for each respective location on the surface of the composite workpiece, receiving a response to one of the multiple electromagnetic pulses at a multi-mode fiber, the response including multiple wavelength components, time shifting the multiple wavelength components with respect to each other by passing the response through the multi-mode fiber to produce a wavelength-binned pulse, sampling the wavelength-binned pulse at time intervals corresponding to the multiple wavelength components to determine a set of wavelength intensity levels corresponding to the multiple wavelength components, and identifying a type or condition of material at the respective location on the surface of the composite workpiece based on the set of wavelength intensity levels.