Conventional vibration sensing relies on dense sensors and sophisticated hardware. Recently, intelligent sensing provides a powerful tool to overcome this limitation. In this work, a compact single-sensor vibration sensing system (SSVS) is established by synergizing a disordered metasurface with intelligent sensing algorithms, enabling high-precision multi-source vibration localization and identification. The system exhibits robust versatility across aluminum and composite structure. Furthermore, the design concept is extended to a UAV platform, achieving fault identification of propellers. Through the disordered metasurface, guided waves from distinct vibration sources experience multiple scattering and differential encoding during propagation, thereby reducing the correlation of the sensing system. Building upon this property, compressive sensing and deep learning is employed to reconstruct the encoded vibration responses, enabling efficient decoding and accurate identification of multi-source vibrations. Given its ease of fabrication and potential of embodied intelligence, this approach establishes a new avenue for intelligent sensing, offering broad potential for non-destructive testing and structural health monitoring in advanced material systems.

Dr. Bing Li is a professor in the School of Aeronautics at Northwestern Polytechnical University, head of aircraft design engineering department. He received his Ph.D. at Peking University (Beijing, China) in 2015, and his Joint-Supervision Ph.D. training at The University of Sydney (Sydney, Australia) in 2013-2014. He conducted his Post-Doctoral training in 2015-2018 at The University of Akron (Akron, US). Dr. Li’s current research interests include wave mechanics of elastic/mechanical metamaterials, vibration and noise control, SHM in advanced composites. He has published >80 scientific papers in top-tier peer-reviewed journals such as Nat. Commun., Compos. Sci. Tech., J. Sound Vib., MSSP, etc. Dr. Li is an Associate Editor/(Youth) Editor Board Member for 7 scientific journals including IJEM, CJA, JMST, etc. Dr. Li is elected as the Fellow of IAAM, Vebleo Fellow, Senior Member of CSTAM and CSCC, Member of ASC and IPS. He has received a series of awards and honors, including Distinguished Expert of Chinese “Oversea Young Talents Program” (2020), 2nd Prize of the Science and Technology Award of the CSAA, CAI and CSVE, The Youth Talent Program of Northwestern Polytechnical University (2018), Science and Technology Award of Shaanxi Higher Education (First place, 2021) etc.