Analysis of the signature of rotating blades with the Empirical Mode Decomposition

In this paper, we present the results of an experimental trial carried out to collect data from a target with a rotating blade at X-band. We apply the Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) to the experimental data and we investigate the information contained in the target Intrinsic Mode Functions (IMF) as a function of the blade speed of rotation, by studying their auto-correlation properties with respect to the experimental ground truth. Experimental results are complimented by a set of simulations in order to understand how the IMFs change as a function of Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR). Results show that the EMD can provide information on the angular speed of the blade.