Optimal sensor placement methods and metrics – comparison and implementation on a timber frame structure

Abstract

The current work aims at determining optimal sensor configurations for the modal identification of a post-tensioned timber frame structure. The objective is to maximise the information gained from the structural testing, while keeping the number of necessary sensors to a minimum. Three different and widely used optimal sensor placement (OSP) methods are investigated and evaluated based on appropriate metrics, namely the effective independence method, the modal kinetic energy method and the information entropy (IE) method. An enhanced IE variant is adopted, which resolves the problem of close positioning of sensors, which forms a common issue when sensor positions are selected from a dense grid. In terms of the adopted metrics, three different options are investigated, namely, the information entropy index, the Modal Assurance Criterion and a newly introduced metric, the relative dispersion index. For the quantification of trade-offs among the selected metrics a Pareto Front scheme is realised. The study indicates that the evaluation of different OSP configurations is strongly dependent on the employed metric. It is therefore of vital importance to select the appropriate metric when determining optimal sensor positions.