Impact location in composite plates using proper orthogonal decomposition

•Impacts were modelled on a flat composite panel.•The proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) was exploited to locate impacts.•A comparison was made between two different plate responses (out of plane accelerations and in plane strains) as input for the POD.•The method was compared to two approaches available in literature.•The sensitivity towards the number of sensors was studied.

The paper presents a novel algorithm for detecting the point of impact in composite plates. Instead of using an approach based on the calculation of the time of arrival of waves at the sensors’ location, the proper orthogonal decomposition of the dynamics of the system after impact is used; thanks to this procedure, there is no need to know the wave propagation velocity, which can be an uncertain quantity when anisotropic materials are involved. Results on a composite plate are compared to the ones obtained with an integral approach present in literature. The proposed approach provides smaller location errors over a wide range of impact positions. Finally a comparison between this novel approach and a classic triangulation method is proposed.