Multi-sensor data fusion using geometric transformations for gas transmission pipeline inspection

This paper presents a technique that can be used to fuse data from multiple sensors that are employed in nondestructive evaluation (NDE) applications, specifically for the in-line inspection of gas transmission pipelines. A radial basis function artificial neural network is used to perform geometric transformations on data obtained from multiple sources. The technique allows the user to define the redundant and complementary information present in the data sets. The efficacy of the algorithm is demonstrated using experimental images obtained from the NDE of a test specimen suite using magnetic flux leakage (MFL), ultrasonic (UT) and thermal imaging methods. The results presented in this paper indicate that neural network based geometric transformation algorithms show considerable promise in multi-sensor data fusion applications.