Summary
The application of particle‐based stochastic filters to acoustic emission source localization in plate structures is presented. The approach employs time‐of‐flight measurements of guided waves using triangulation to estimate the acoustic emission source coordinates in a probabilistic framework using Bayesian inference, incorporating uncertainties related to material properties, measurement noise, and geometry of the system of interest. The estimate of the source location is given by a probability density function conditional on the guided wave measurements, found using particle‐based stochastic simulation algorithms; in this setting, a set of particles is used to explore the space of possible source locations and efficiently estimate the posterior. The use of 2 filters is explored: the ensemble Kalman filter and the particle filter. The former filter assumes that the posterior distribution can be approximated by a Gaussian distribution, although the latter provides a nonparametric estimate of the posterior in the form of a weighted set of samples, overcoming the challenges related to the evaluation of high‐dimensional integrals in an efficient way. Results of an experimental validation study conducted in a laboratory environment demonstrate the accuracy and efficiency of the particle filter‐based approach. In particular, it is shown that the proposed particle filter‐based approach has the capability to locate the emission source under minimal instrumentation, providing confidence intervals as a quantitative measure of the uncertainty in the estimates.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.