A full-range (360°) damage detection is necessary for structural health monitoring of large plate-like structures. However, the linear arrays are mainly limited by the range of damage detection, which is maximum up to 180°. Moreover the detection accuracy is also very poor at angles close to 0° and 180°. In order to solve this problem, a novel damage detection and localization method is presented in this paper. The proposed method combines the image enhancement technology and the cruciform piezoelectric phased array to improve the performance of the linear array based system. In addition to the implementation of cruciform phased array, a new image enhancement algorithm is proposed with an aim to deal with the problem of phantom image emerging in the opposite side of the original image. The results of the experiments conducted on aluminum plate and epoxy composite laminate plate show that the proposed method can effectively solve the limitations of the linear sensor array, and accurately detect single or multiple damages in full angle mode
