On a method for finding position and orientation of accelerometers from their signals

Abstract

In many experimental structural dynamics applications where accelerometers are used, it is important to know their position and orientation. The typical approaches to determine this are time-consuming and can require additional costly equipment. The study presents a method that can retrieve this information directly from the accelerometers’ readings, under the assumption that the object under test can move as a rigid body. To some degree, this assumption is satisfied in some practical applications, such as experimental modal analysis, where free-free boundary conditions are often assumed, and the test object can move as a rigid body within a constrained range. However, the presented method is not applicable for test objects with fixed supports, and cannot be used in, for example, many civil engineering applications.The paper introduces the method, discusses its applicability and constraints, demonstrates the method on a case study and provides the estimations of the method’s precision. The study also compares the method with the analogous accelerometer arrays self-calibration method, which was developed for different application areas.