Also in nondestructive testing COBOTS are gaining more and more importance. SONOTEC wants to accompany this industrial change with its innovative and worldwide first ultrasonic air-coupled phased-array system SONOAIR. SONOTEC has developed together with Universal Robot's partner Radalytica s.r.o an innovative SONOAIR - COBOT setup. During a lunch break on Long Island, it was introduced to the attendees and Tobias Gautzsch demonstrated how easy it is to automate virtually any task using collaborative robot technology. Air-coupled ultrasonic testing and COBOTS are ideal for scanning large areas and can easily be modified to test a variety of complex components.

September 26, 2019 - NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Alabama

From New York, our air-coupled ultrasound expert and Toni Bailey of TB3 NDT Consulting LLC moved on to Huntsville, Alabama, NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. As part of NASA's two-week ASNT Ultrasound Level 3 course, conducted annually by NASA's TB3 NDT Consulting LLC, NASA's first-ever, one-day training in the basics of airborne ultrasound was conducted. Based on the theory and practice of the SONOTEC SONOAIR demo system, the workshop participants were shown that air-coupled ultrasonic testing is ideal for inspecting aerospace parts, as it does not contaminate or damage the inspected components. In addition, in this industry often strongly dampening materials and structures such as composites or honeycomb structures are installed. These structures and materials can be better penetrated with air-coupled ultrasound and without risking to introduce moisture by the test in the components. In space, this would evaporate abruptly due to the vacuum and could lead to severe damage to satellites and rockets.