An improved algorithm for detecting point of impact in anisotropic inhomogeneous plates

Conventional triangulation techniques fail to correctly predict the acoustic source location in anisotropic plates due to the direction dependent nature of the elastic wave speeds. To overcome this problem, Kundu et al. [1] proposed an alternative method for acoustic source prediction based on optimizing an objective function. They defined an objective function that uses the time of flight information of the acoustic waves to the passive transducers attached to the plate and the wave propagation direction (θ) from the source point to the receiving sensors. Some weaknesses of the original algorithm proposed in Ref. [1] were later overcome by developing a modified objective function [2]. A new objective function is introduced here to further simplify the optimization procedure and improve the computational efficiency. A new algorithm for source location is also introduced here to increase the source location accuracy. The performance of the objective function and source location algorithm were experimentally verified on a homogeneous anisotropic plate and a non-homogeneous anisotropic plate with a doubler patch. Results from these experiments indicate that the new objective function and source location algorithm have improved performance when compared with those discussed in Refs. [1,2].