Time-frequency signal decomposition using energy mixture models

We address the problem of signal decomposition. We specify signal components by the property that their energies are localised and disjoint in the time-frequency plane. Rather than modelling the signal directly, we represent the time-frequency energy of the signal using a finite mixture model. This model is used to develop a partitioning of the time-frequency plane, allowing the application of time-frequency filtering to isolate components. Modelling energy rather than specifying a dictionary of allowable waveforms imposes fewer constraints on what a component may be. We demonstrate how the approach can be applied in the context of vibration analysis, where we wish to isolate the structure of individual bending waves travelling through a beam.