A hybrid support vector regression with multi-domain features for low-velocity impact localization on composite plate structure

The accurate localization of low-velocity impacts on the composite plate structure of the ship is still a great challenge. Current research mainly focuses on extracting single domain features from impact signals as the input of machine learning methods, whereas ignores multi-domain features with more comprehensive impact information. In this paper, a hybrid support vector regression with multi-domain features is proposed to increase the localization accuracy in determining the locations of low-velocity impacts on the composite plate structure. The proposed method consists of the signal preprocessing, the multidomain feature extraction, and the impact localization. In the signal preprocessing, the trend component in the low-velocity impact signals is eliminated by adopting the empirical mode decomposition (EMD) method. Then, the multi-domain features, which include time domain features, frequency domain features, and time-frequency domain features, are extracted from the preprocessed impact signals. Finally, the optimized support vector regression based on the bat algorithm (BA-SVR) is designed to implement the localization of low-velocity impacts. The low-velocity impact localization system using four fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors is established on a carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) plate, and then five sets of experiments are executed. The statistical results in these experiments demonstrate the effectiveness and feasibility of BA-SVR that uses multi-domain features and four FBG sensors and the satisfactory localization performance of the proposed method in handling the low-velocity impact localization problem on the CFRP plate. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

This study proposes a hybrid support vector regression method with multi-domain features to increase the accuracy of low-velocity impact localization on composite plate structures of ships. By incorporating signal preprocessing, feature extraction, and impact localization, the method effectively improves the localization performance. Experimental results demonstrate the satisfactory effectiveness of the proposed method in handling low-velocity impact localization issues on CFRP plates.