Hybrid Spectro-Temporal Fusion Framework for Structural Health Monitoring

arXiv cs.LG / 4/21/2026

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Key Points

  • The paper introduces Spectro-Temporal Alignment and a Hybrid Spectro-Temporal Fusion framework to improve structural health monitoring by combining arrival-time interval descriptors with spectral features.
  • Experiments on data from an LDS V406 electrodynamic shaker show that the new spectro-temporal representations outperform conventional input formulations.
  • The study finds that temporal resolution matters: a coarser setting (Δτ = 0.008 with a 0.02 factor) favors traditional machine learning models, while a finer setting (Δτ = 0.008) best unlocks deep learning performance.
  • A stability analysis using condensed indices (mean performance, standard deviation, coefficient of variation, and balanced score) indicates the hybrid approach delivers higher accuracy with lower variability than baselines and alignment-only methods.
  • Overall, the proposed hybrid framework is positioned as a robust, accurate, and reliable method for vibration-based structural health monitoring.

Abstract

Structural health monitoring plays a critical role in ensuring structural safety by analyzing vibration responses from engineering systems. This paper proposes a Spectro-Temporal Alignment framework and a Hybrid Spectro-Temporal Fusion framework that integrate arrival-time interval descriptors with spectral features to capture both fine-scale and coarse-scale vibration dynamics. Experiments conducted on data collected from an LDS V406 electrodynamic shaker demonstrate that the proposed spectro-temporal representations significantly outperform conventional input formulations. The results indicate that a temporal resolution ({\Delta}{\tau}) of 0.008 of 0.02 favors traditional machine learning models, whereas a finer resolution ({\Delta}{\tau}) of 0.008 effectively unlocks the performance potential of deep learning architectures. Beyond classification accuracy, a comprehensive stability analysis based on condensed indices, including mean performance, standard deviation, coefficient of variation, and balanced score, shows that the proposed hybrid framework consistently achieves higher accuracy with substantially lower variability compared to baseline and alignment-only approaches. Overall, these results demonstrate that the proposed framework provides a robust, accurate, and reliable solution for vibration-based structural health monitoring.