OPTIMAL SENSOR PLACEMENT METHOD FOR THE PURPOSE OF STRUCTURAL HEALTH MONITORING

A methodology is presented in this paper for the identification of an effective way to install a given number of sensors on a structure to extract as much information as possible for structural model updating utilizing measured dynamic data. The information entropy is employed as a measure to quantify the uncertainties of the set of identified model parameters. The problem of optimal sensor placement is then formulated as a discrete optimization problem, in which the information entropy measure is minimized, with the sensor configurations as the minimization variables. The methodology is illustrated numerically and experimentally using shear building models. The performance of the optimal sensor placement technique is verified using the results of model updating based on measured acceleration responses of a 4-storey shear building model under laboratory conditions.