Advances and challenges in NDE sensors

The industrial world continues to demand greater efficiency and effectiveness from the inspection processes using Nondestructive Evaluation (NDE) techniques. NDE sensors form the heart of any inspection system and could be one of the most important contributor to effective and reliable inspections in the industrial world. One important and frequently adopted approach by researchers in the NDE community is to innovate in the NDE sensors area. The industrial world of engineering structures and components is reasonably complex and extremely broad in terms of materials used, shapes, designs, defects to be detected, operating conditions, etc. The reasons for focusing on the sensors side is multifold; most important being the fact that in the entire system, it is the closest in proximity to the object being inspected and thus can contribute significantly. In addition many of the advances taking place in a host of enabling technologies such as electronics, communication, signal processing, computers, manufacturing, modeling/simulation tools, etc, have accelerated and motivated the design and development of new NDE sensors which can meet today's tough demands.