Fusion of Microwave and Eddy Current Data for a Multi- Modal Approach in Evaluating Corrosion under Paint and in Lap Joints (preprint)

Critical aircraft structures are susceptible to hidden corrosion. Find-it and fix-it approaches are inefficient as it relates to managing the problems associated with corrosion. More comprehensive corrosion information may be obtained using data fusion from several detection and evaluation methods. To this end, microwave, conventional and pulsed eddy current data from a multi-layer corroded panel, representing an aircraft lap joint, are fused and used as inputs to a structural analysis model to obtain a comprehensive snapshot of the corroded environment. This paper presents the data fusion algorithm and the structural analysis model along with a discussion of the results.