A multi‐level feature fusion artificial neural network for classification of acoustic emission signals

In this paper, we introduce FUSION‐ANN, a novel artificial neural network (ANN) designed for acoustic emission (AE) signal classification. FUSION‐ANN comprises four distinct ANN branches, each housing an independent multilayer perceptron. We extract denoised features of speech recognition such as linear predictive coding, Mel‐frequency cepstral coefficient, and gammatone cepstral coefficient to represent AE signals. These features are concatenated to form a new feature called LMGC, which serves as input data for the four branches of FUSION‐ANN. The network performs AE signal recognition and classification through forward propagation in each branch, utilizing multi‐level feature fusion. We evaluate FUSION‐ANN's performance on the ORION‐AE benchmark dataset, which contains AE signals from various loading conditions simulating loosening phenomena in aeronautics, automotive, and civil engineering structures. Our results demonstrate an impressive average accuracy of 98% in AE signal classification. Additionally, FUSION‐ANN boasts high training efficiency, robustness, and accuracy, making it suitable for reliable AE signal analysis. However, given the current limitations, we aim to conduct more comprehensive investigations in the future. Our plan includes further testing of the network's performance across various categories of AE signals to assess its generality. Additionally, we will select richer and more efficient feature sets to characterize these signals.