An Infrared-Induced Terahertz Imaging Modality for Foreign Object Detection in a Lightweight Honeycomb Composite Structure

In this paper, terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS) is used for the first time to detect fabricated defects in a glass fiber-skinned lightweight honeycomb composite panel. A novel amplitude polynomial regression (APR) algorithm is proposed as a preprocessing method. This method segments the amplitude–frequency curves to simulate the heating and the cooling monotonic behavior as in infrared thermography. Then, the method of empirical orthogonal function (EOF) imaging is applied on the APR preprocessed data as a postprocessing algorithm. Signal-to-noise ratio analysis is performed to verify the image improvement of the proposed APR-EOF modality from a quantitative point of view. Finally, the experimental results and the physical analysis show that THz is more suitable with respect to the detection of defects in glass fiber lightweight honeycomb composites.