Ultrasonic Sciences Ltd

Founded in 1988, Ultrasonic Sciences Ltd (USL) originally designed and manufactured PC based expansion boards for ultrasonic testing machines and shortly after began building complete inspection systems incorporating these boards. The staff includes a wide range of specialists including mechanical designers and manufacturing engineers, electrical / electronic design / application engineers and software specialists. In addition, the three current Directors were all involved in the formation of the company and have a combined experience in the NDT industry of more than 100 years.

The company is headquartered in Aldershot, close to Farnborough, the home of the UK aerospace industry. USL operates from two adjacent factories with manufacturing and office space totalling approximately 30,000 square feet (2,800 square meters).

USL staff members can design and manufacture virtually all components of an automated inspection/testing system including mechanisms, electrical system, electronics hardware and software.

Electronic and mechanical design is carried out using the latest CAD systems – Solidworks and AutoCAD for mechanical design. USL has a policy to design and manufacture as many components of a complete system as possible in-house, where practical and economic – systems based on industrial robots being the exception. This ensures a high level of autonomy, more effective application of current and emerging technologies, and a high level of intellectual property is held within the company. We have our own CNC controlled equipment for sheet metal fabrication and laser tracking system for precision machine alignment and calibration.

The first complete ultrasonic water jet inspection system designed and manufactured by USL was delivered in 1991 and since then conventional ultrasonic water jet systems have been installed at locations throughout the world. In the past, these machines were based on cartesian mechanisms in dual tower, travelling gantry and flatbed configurations, which provide a cuboid scan volume. The first 10-axis machine of the current generation for inspection of complex geometry components was installed in 1999 at BAE Systems in the UK.