Piezoelectric transducer built-in self-test for logging while drilling instrument sensor evaluation at rig site

Logging While Drilling (LWD) instruments used in oil and gas exploration are subjected to extreme environmental conditions that make reliable operation a major challenge. The sensors directly exposed to this environment experience accelerated aging and may suffer physical damage leading to failure. The cost of drilling and rig operations is very high magnifying any failures or issues with LWD tools. The goal of this report is to present a built-in self-test for an instrument sensor that provides a means to evaluate sensor functionality. The sensor is a piezoelectric ultrasonic transducer. A brief review of the sensor physics will be given. I will review some methods for characterizing piezoelectric ceramic materials and transducers. The application of sensor test methods is applied in an ultrasound pulse-echo application. A brief review of the application circuit will be covered including state of the art in commercial ultrasound integrated circuit design. A prototype of the BIST method is evaluated using test transducers to verify the circuit provides indication of a transducers ability to function correctly. The prototype is achieved through the AD5933 demo board and MATLAB is used for data processing.