# On generating parametrised structural data using conditional generative adversarial networks

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2203.01641 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.01641/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 7 of its 18 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 3 Mar 2022.

## Builds on (most cited first, 7 of 7)

- [Conditional Generative Adversarial Nets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1411.1784/) (2014)
- [Context Encoders: Feature Learning by Inpainting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1604.07379/) (2016)
- [InfoGAN: Interpretable Representation Learning by Information Maximizing Generative Adversarial Nets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.03657/) (2016)
- [Image De-raining Using a Conditional Generative Adversarial Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1701.05957/) (2017)
- [Invertible Conditional GANs for image editing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.06355/) (2016)
- [Neural Photo Editing with Introspective Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1609.07093/) (2016)
- [Generative Face Completion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1704.05838/) (2017)

## Abstract (arXiv)

A powerful approach, and one of the most common ones in structural health monitoring (SHM), is to use data-driven models to make predictions and inferences about structures and their condition. Such methods almost exclusively rely on the quality of the data. Within the SHM discipline, data do not always suffice to build models with satisfactory accuracy for given tasks. Even worse, data may be completely missing from one's dataset, regarding the behaviour of a structure under different environmental conditions. In the current work, with a view to confronting such issues, the generation of artificial data using a variation of the generative adversarial network (GAN) algorithm, is used. The aforementioned variation is that of the conditional GAN or cGAN. The algorithm is not only used to generate artificial data, but also to learn transformations of manifolds according to some known parameters. Assuming that the structure's response is represented by points in a manifold, part of the space will be formed due to variations in external conditions affecting the structure. This idea proves efficient in SHM, as it is exploited to generate structural data for specific values of environmental coefficients. The scheme is applied here on a simulated structure which operates under different temperature and humidity conditions. The cGAN is trained on data for some discrete values of the temperature within some range, and is able to generate data for every temperature in this range with satisfactory accuracy. The novelty, compared to classic regression in similar problems, is that the cGAN allows unknown environmental parameters to affect the structure and can generate whole manifolds of data for every value of the known parameters, while the unknown ones vary within the generated manifolds.