Determination of plate source, detector separation from one signal

We address the problem of locating a transient source, such as an acoustic emission source, in a plate. We apply time-frequency analysis to the signals detected at a receiver. These highly dispersive and complex waveforms are measured for source-receiver separations ranging from 40 to 180 plate thicknesses and at frequencies such that 10 to 20 Rayleigh-Lamb branches are included. Reassigned, smoothed, pseudo-Wigner-Ville distributions are generated that exhibit the expected sharp ridges in the time-frequency plane, lying along the predicted frequency-time-of-arrival relations. The source-receiver separation can be determined from such plots.