AbstractIn order to improve the detecting accuracy of the

fast-detection device of the UHT(Ultra Heat Treated) box milk

quality, the method of wavelet de-noising is applied to the free
damped torsional vibration signals produced by the liquid milk
box. And by getting the envelope demodulation using the
Hilbert transform, the damping ratio of the system is finally
calculated. Under the case that the package of liquid box milk is
not destroyed, the change in the quality of the liquid milk can be
estimated indirectly with the help of the damping ratio of the
system. The theoretical and experimental results indicate that
the detecting accuracy of the damping ratio of the system is
improved significantly in contrast with the traditional
calculation method of the damping ratio. This is due to the
application of the additional two filtering process namely, the
wavelet de-noising and the Hilbert transform for the envelope.
The distributing range of the detecting results of the detection
device for box milk quality adopting this calculation method
also gets well controlled.
I. INTRODUCTION
He fast detecting device for the UHT box milk quality
adopts a detecting installation that can produce free
torsional vibration. By measuring the damping ratio of the
torsion free attenuation curve for liquid box milk, the change
in the liquid milk viscosity can be judged indirectly, and
finally the quality of the milk can be estimated while the
package is not opened. Nowadays, the safety of food
worldwide is becoming a more and more serious issue. To
solve the problem, a low-cost and easy quality monitoring
method is provided to the milk manufacturers and the field of
diary product circulation.
However, as it is an indirect monitoring method, the
driving device will inevitably produce interfering noise
during the data testing process. Therefore, how to obtain the
useful signals, overcome and get rid of interference and
improve the parameter recognition accuracy of the damping
ratio in the presence of noise interference have become one of

Manuscript received January 15, 2009. This work was supported by
Chinese national programs for science and technology development
(northeast special)(2004DA907A29) and Heilongjiang province education
department programs for science and technology(10051058)
Shi Xianjiang is with School of Mechanical & Power Engineering, Harbin
University of Science and Technology, Harbin, Heilongjiang,
China(corresponding author to provide phone: 86-451-86390491; fax:
86-451-86390491; e-mail: hustsxj@ hrbust.edu.cn).
Jin Qiang is with Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, Jinan institute of
Mechanical Staff, Jinan, Shandong, China (e-mail:
jingqiang-123@163.com).
Zhao Xinjie is with School of Mechanical & Power Engineering, Harbin
University of Science and Technology, Harbin, Heilongjiang, China (e-mail:
zhaoxinjie105@163.com).
the most important methods to improve the accuracy as well
as the reliability of the equipment itself.
At present, there exist various calculation methods of the
damping ratio of the system, including free attenuation
method, and experimental modal analysis and half power
point method [1]. When the half power point method is
applied to the system with little damp, the damp measuring
repeatability is low. The experimental modal analysis method
is not suitable for systems with small damp. Therefore, this
paper will adopt free attenuation method. However, due to
the fact that the practice of acquiring the crest value of the
free attenuation method will cause significant errors and will
be easily interfered by the noise, this paper suggests the new
way of calculating the damping coefficient by applying
Hilbert transform to the signals after acquiring the free
reaction signals with the help of wavelet de-noising
technology.



II. PRINCIPLE OF FREE DAMPED TORSIONAL VIBRATION
METHOD
Adopting the free damped torsional vibration method to
judge the viscosity of the box milk, we must, firstly build a
driving device which will produce torsional vibration for box
liquid milk. The mechanics model is shown as Fig.1 (a), it is
composed of mass block (device and liquid milk box), spring
and damper. Its dynamics differential equation is:

2
2
( ) ( )
( ) ( )
d x t dx t
J C kx t M t
dt dt
+ + = ) 1 (

In the equation:
JEquivalent moment of inertia of box liquid milk and
device;
CEquivalent damping coefficient of box liquid milk and
Application of Wavelet and Hilbert Transform in the Detecting
Parameter Recognition of Box Milk Quality
Xianjiang Shi, Qiang Jin and Xinjie Zhao
T
t
x(t)
J
M(t)
C k
(a) Mechanics model (b) Pulse response curve
Fig.1 Mechanics model of free attenuation torsional vibration method
978-1-4244-3608-8/09/$25.00 2009 IEEE.
975
Proceedings of the 2009 IEEE
International Conference on Information and Automation
June 22 -25, 2009, Zhuhai/Macau, China

device;
k Equivalent stiffness of the system;
x (t) Response of the system angular displacement;
M (t) Equivalent outside force of the system.
The equation (1) is typical second order system
mathematical model. When a short-time angle driving M (t)
(equal to an impulse drive) was exerted to the testing system,
the systems response characteristic is a free damped
vibration curve, as shown in Fig.1 (b). Its mathematical
equation is.

0
2 0
0
2
( ) sin( 1 )
1
t

x t e t

(2)

In the equation:

0
natural frequency of system,
0
k J = ;
damping ratio of system, 0.5 / C kJ = .
It can be known from the previous equation that, after the
system is finalized, the systems response characteristic curve
is only related with the systems damping coefficient and
natural frequency, but has nothing to do with the driving
vibration force
Because liquid milk box is fixed on the holding plate, its
thin layer of liquid approaching the bottom surface will move
along with the bottom surface together. So, the reflecting
result is that the bottom surface receives damping force.
Therefore, we may regard the liquid milk box as the
combination of the damping part and the mass part, that is, the
systems equivalent damping coefficient C has contained
testing devices equivalent damping C
1
and liquid milk boxs
equivalent damping C
2
. If we can make the devices C
1
be far
less than liquid milk boxs C
2,
during the process of design,
then in fact, after the system is finalized, the system response
mainly lie on the change of C
1
, namely the change of liquid
milk viscosity, because C
1
is invariable basically. If we can
measure the systems damping ratio , we may distinguish the
liquid milks viscosity change, thus indirectly distinguish the
quality of the liquid milk.
III. COMPONENTS OF THE TESTING DEVICE
The hardware part of the box milk quality device includes
the machinery drive vibration and controlling part and the
data acquisition part. Machine part, as Fig2 shows, is
composed of the liquid milk box, salver, shaft, torsional
spring, step motor, pin and high precision angle sensor. The
superior extremities of the shaft are firmly tied with the
quadrate salver. The size of the salver is same as that of the
liquid milk box to lead the box milk reverse and vibrate. The
computer drives the step motor entire extension week each
time in examination. Through dials pin it enables the
revolution axis to change to an initial point. The torsional
spring stores the elastic potential energy. After dials pin
leaves, the torsional spring drives the revolution axis free
attenuation torsional vibration. The bottom of revolution axis
is joined with precision angulardisplacement sensor
through rubber pipe, which can turn the angular displacement
of the torsional vibration into the voltage signal and finally
sends the signals to the computer data acquisition circuit. The
core of data acquisition circuit is USB2015 data acquisition
card manufactured by ART Company. Fig.3 is the physical
figure of detecting equipment and testing system. A part from
acquiring torsional angular displacement signals, the data
acquisition card utilize two channels timer/counter on the
card to output pulse signals to drive the step motor. In order to
control rotational speed and rotational angle of the step
motor, we make counter 0 work at mode 3 to output square
wave with certain frequency to the step motor drive. At the
same time, input this square wave into the clock input
terminus CLK of counter1. Counter 1 works at mode 0 to
count square wave. It exports control signal to the OUT
terminus when the number of square wave reaches counter
value (The number corresponding for step motor rotate 1
circle). After the control signals go through inverter, the
A/D CH0+
Driver
Amplifer
OUT
0
GATE0
OUT
1
CLK
1
USB2015
USB
Computer
Liquid milk box
Step
Motor
Angle
Sensor
Pin
Spring
Interface
Fig.2 The detecting equipment and testing system
Fig.3 The physical figure of detecting equipment and testing system
(a) Nondestructive testing
device physical figure
(b) Physical figure of data
acquisition and control

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GATE terminus of counter 0 turns to low level to stop the
rotating of the step motor.
IV. PRINCIPLES OF WAVELET TRANSFORM DE-NOISING
A. Wavelet transform
Assume that the signal to be analyzed, namely f(t) is a
one-dimensional function with limited
energy.
2
( ) ( ) f t L R Then the continuous wavelet transform
can be defined as

1
( , ) ( ) ( )
R
t a
W a b f t dt
b a

(3)

In the formula, a is called scale factor, and b is called shift
factor, R is called time domain,
,
1
( ) ( )
a b
t b
t
a a

= is
called wavelet basis function, a is called normalization
factor.
Discrete dyadic wavelet transform is most widely used in
engineering. It is equivalent to making continuous wavelet
dyadic discrete in scale, while keeping the displacement
variable continuously at the same time. The formula can be
expressed as below:

2 ,
1
( ) ( )
2 2
k
k j
t j
t

= (4)

For dyadic wavelet transform on the finite scale, Morlet
decomposition algorithm as shown below can be used to
decompose.

1/ 2 1
2
1/ 2 1
2
2
2
j j
n k k n
k
j j
n k k n
k
C C h
D C g
+

(5)

In the equation, n is discrete sampling number, h
n
and g
n,
are the pulse response of the filter (the damp coefficient of the
decomposing filter), and it is used for decomposing the
signals. j is the number of decomposing layers,
j
k
C is the
low-frequency coefficient of the signal (approximation
coefficient),
j
k
D is the high-frequency coefficient of the
signal(detail coefficient).
After being decomposed by the Morlet decomposition
algorithm, the signal can be recomposed by Morlet
recomposition algorithm, the algorithm of recomposition is
shown as below.

1 1/ 2
2 2
2 ( )
j j j
n k n k k n k
k k
C C h D g
+

= +

(6)

*
n
h ,
*
n
g are the damp coefficient of the recomposition filter.
B. Principle and algorithm of soft threshold value
de-noising
As the torsional vibration containing noise measured is
discrete, the formula is:

( ) ( ) ( ) f i x i n i = + {i =1, 2, ...n} (7)

In the formula, x(i) is the signal expected, n(i) is the white
gaussian noise with the variant equaling to
2
, namely N(0,

2
) .
The observed signal f(i) is dealt with in the method of
discrete wavelet transform. When discrete wavelet transform
is applied to original measuring signal, the signal is assumed
to be composed of the real signals expected and the noise
signals. Accordingly, the wavelet coefficient is composed of
the coefficient of both real signals and the noise signals. The
two kinds of signals have different characteristics of shape.
As the scale increases, the amplitude of the noise signal
coefficient will attenuate to zero immediately, while the
amplitude of real signal coefficient stays the same basically.
In the way, the noise signals can be distinguished effectively
from the original signal zone and the finally the purpose of
de-noising can be reached. The wavelet de-noising process
for one-dimensional signal can be divided into the following
three steps.
1) The analysis of wavelet. Firstly, a wavelet is chosen and
the layer N of the wavelet decomposition is confirmed.
Then, decompose the original signals in N layers using
wavelet technology.
2) Quantification of the threshold value. According to
Steins theory of Unbiased Risk Estimate, the wavelet
coefficient after decomposition is dealt with in the
respect of threshold

max(1- / , 0)
k k k
j j j
D D t D = (8)

in the formula, 2log( ) t N = is the threshold value
based on quadrature wavelet transform [2].
3) Signal recomposition. According to the low-frequency
coefficient of the N layer of wavelet decomposition and
the high-frequency coefficient from the first layer to the
N after quantification, the signals are decomposed and
finally the de-noised signals are attained.
C. Calculation of damp coefficient using Hilbert transform
If x(t) represents a real time-domain signal, then its Hilbert
conversion can be defined as:

1 ( ) 1
( ) ( ) *
x
h t d x t
t t
+

= =

(9)

so the original signal x(t) and its Hilbert conversion signal h(t)
form a new analytic signal Z(t), equal to

977

( )
Z( ) = ( ) + ( ) = ( )
j t
t x t jh t A t e (10)

the amplitude of Z(t) can be expressed as:

2 2
( ) = [ ( )] +[ ( )] A t x t h t (11)

which is the amplitude demodulation of the original signal
x(t), the curve of phase change is

( )
( ) arctan
( )
h t
t
x t
= (12)
Besides, formula (2) can furthermore be expressed as:

0
-
0 0
( ) cos( )
t
d
x t A e t = +
- ( )
( )
j t
A t e = (13)

A(t) can be expressed as

0
0
( )
t
A t A e

= (14)

Obtain the natural logarithm on both sides of formula (14):

0 0
ln ( ) ln A t t A = + (15)

This is a linear equation. If the slope k of the straight line is
known, the damping ratio of the system can be estimated
according to the formula below.

0
k = (16)

During the actual calculation, the envelope signal
( ) A t obtained through Hilbert transform is linear fitted using
minimum dyadic multiplication. The slope k of the straight
line is measured and the natural frequency of the system
0
is
estimated with the method of spectra. Eventually, the
damping ratio is calculated according to (16). Fig.4
indicates the above-mentioned calculation of process.

Hilbert
|A(n)|
lnA(n) j
x(n)
h(n) jh(n)
Transform
Wavelet
de-noising
x'(n)
x'(n)
Damping
ratio
Fitting
line


V. ANALYSIS OF THE TESTING RESULTS
According to the test on products such as certified milk and
UHT box milk which has decayed, sweet yoghurt and box
soft drinks, the natural oscillation frequency of the system
stays around 4.6875Hz, while the value is around 5.6485 Hz
when it is load free. Therefore, the natural frequency is
related to the mass and the rigidity of the system while has
nothing to the damping ratio of the system.
The method introduced in this paper is applied in testing
the qualified UHT milk of a certain brand. The response
signalare acquired, and the acquisition frequency is 170Hz.
The time domain graph of the response signal is shown as
Fig.5.
Wavelet de-noising technology is used to de-noise the
response signals. The db3 wavelet is used, and the layer
number of decomposition is 3, the threshold value t equals to
1.8465. The signal after recomposition is shown as Fig. 6. By
comparing Fig.5 and Fig.6, the conclusion that the signals
after recomposition keeps the basic characteristics of the
original signal. Through the envelope curve as shown in Fig.7
obtained by Hilbert transform, the logarithm curve and the
fitting straight line can be acquired, as Fig.8 shows. Through
calculation, the damping ratio is 0.5926, which is within the
range of qualification.
Therefore, in the testing device, the qualification of UHT
box milk can be judged by setting the threshold range of
damping ratio for a certain brand, and by comparing with the
testing data according to the brand of the milk chosen
previously.
In order to test the accuracy and reliability of the device, a
comparing experiment on the box milk produced by a factory
is conducted. The testing samples are sorted into two groups
of 60 samples each, one group is the qualified products and
the other is unqualified milk after accelerating cultivation.
Each group is tested in two ways, one is free response curve
method [11], and the other is the wavelet Hilbert transform
method. The testing results are shown in Fig. 9 and Fig. 10.
Fig.4 Flow chart of calculating damp coefficient through wavelet and
Hilbert transform
0 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0 6.0
-2
-1
0
1
2
Time/ s
Fig.6 The response signal after wavelet de-noising
A
n
g
l
e
/

V

0 0.1 2.0 3. 4.0 5.0 6.0
-2
-1
0
1
2
Fig.5 Time domain waveform of the response signal
A
n
g
l
e

/

V

Time/ s
978





From Fig.9 and Fig.10, the damping ratios of the qualified
and unqualified milk are separated in different ranges. The
range for qualified milk is between 0.5 to 0.6 while the range
for the unqualified is between 0.6 and 0.8. Since there is no
intersect between two ranges, reliable testing results can be
got in either way. Besides, the variant for damping ratio in
Fig.10 is significantly smaller than that of Fig.9. Therefore,
this method has higher testing accuracy than the routine
methods. As the number of testing sample is limited, there is
no detailed statistic analysis and comparison in this paper.
VI. CONCLUSION
In this paper, the method of wavelet combined with Hilbert
transform is applied in testing parameter recognition of box
milk quality. From the experimental results, the acquisition
accuracy of the free response signals is improved with the
help of wavelet de-noising. Besides, with the further dealing
of the signal with the method of calculating envelope through
Hilbert transform, the natural frequency signals of the system
can be removed. It is equivalent to filtering of two times. The
results can significantly the recognition accuracy of system
parameters and the repeatability accuracy.
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0
0.?
0.+
0.b
0.8
!
! 9 !3 ! ?! ? ?9
D
a
m
p
i
n
g

r
a
t
i
o

Number of testing
Qualified
Unqualified
Fig. 10 Statistic graph for the testing results of Hilbert and wavelet
0
0.?
0.+
0.b
0.8
!
! 9 !3 ! ?! ? ?9
Fig. 9 Statistic graph for the testing results of free response method
D
a
m
p
i
n
g

r
a
t
i
o

Number of testing
Qualified
Unqualified
0 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0 6.0
-1.0
-0.5
0.0
0.5
1.0
1.5
2.0
Time/ s
A
n
g
l
e

/

V

Fig.8 Logarithm curve and the fitting straight line
The envelope
curve of logarithm
Fitting straight line
0 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0 6.0
-2
-1
0
1
2
Time/ s
A
n
g
l
e

/

V

Fig.7 Envelope curve of Hilbert transform
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