A literature review: Generative adversarial networks for civil structural health monitoring

Abstract

Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) of civil structures has been constantly evolving with novel methods, advancements in data science, and more accessible technology to address issues related to structural safety, operations, and resiliency. Research and development in the civil SHM field during the last few decades have been progressive due to the increasing use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) methods such as Machine Learning (ML) and Deep Learning (DL). Particularly, Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN), which is a subfamily of Deep Learning has been highly favored in the SHM community within the last couple of years. After its release in 2014, GANs (original GAN and other GAN variants) have been in use for a wide variety of applications in various disciplines, and it has been one of the most popular research topics in the AI-ML domain. While there has not been a review study on the applications of GAN in the civil SHM field, this paper aims to fill this gap by presenting a literature review of the studies that employed GAN specifically in civil SHM applications from 2014 to date, in a condensed format. This study intends to inform SHM practitioners and researchers about GANs and present the highlights of the published work on GANs in the civil SHM field.