Fast Dynamic Time Warping for Temperature Compensation in Guided Waves

Abstract

The paper discusses Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) based on ultrasonic guided waves for damage detection in structures. Guided waves allow inspection over long distances and inaccessible features, but are also sensitive to changes in environmental and operating conditions (EOC). The focus of this paper is on temperature compensation methods for guided waves. The compensation techniques include Baseline Signal Stretch (BSS), Optimal Baseline Selection (OBS), OBS+BSS, and Dynamic Time-Warping (DTW). In particular, a new, fast approximation of DTW is evaluated and compared with conventional but computationally expensive DTW. The FDTW algorithm utilizes a multilevel approach inspired by graph bisection principles to achieve precise warping path determination with linear computational complexity. The study evaluates the compensation performance of FDTW using a single baseline at a single temperature, thus addressing the complexity and inaccessibility issues of obtaining an extensive database of baseline signals in practical applications. The Open Guided Wave (OGW) dataset is employed for a fair comparison with other compensation methods. Results indicate that FDTW performs well, demonstrating comparable warping performance to DTW but with significantly reduced computational complexity. The analysis also includes comparisons with BSS, OBS+BSS, and DTW across a range of temperatures, highlighting the effectiveness of FDTW in mitigating errors introduced by larger temperature variations.