A new approach for structural health monitoring: damage detection on large structures through a swarm of moving sensors

The present paper takes place in the context of identification problems: the aim is to propose a new approach for the detection of damages within large structures via the deployment of a set of moving sensors. The goal of the method is to optimally control the motion of the swarm driving the sensors in the optimal measurement regions, in order to perceive the field as clean as possible and to enhance the identification of any possible irregularity along the structure. The optimal control of the sensors motion and the consequent damage identification are achieved through a two-step strategy. The first one is based on: i) models for the dynamics of the structure, for the dynamics of the sensors; ii) LQR control logic to define the optimal trajectory of the swarm. The second step includes the identification of the damage module: the process of data analysis is investigated through use of the technique based on Empirical Mode Decomposition, combined with the Hilbert-Huang Transform.