A vision-based approach for the direct measurement of displacements in vibrating systems

TLDR

The study develops, calibrates, and evaluates a vision‑based method for directly measuring absolute displacement histories at selected points on dispersed civil infrastructure such as long‑span bridges. The method employs a high‑accuracy camera paired with a laser tracking reference, calibrated in the laboratory, and was deployed near the Vincent Thomas Bridge to assess field implementation challenges. The approach demonstrates potential for an economical, robust system that can simultaneously capture displacement histories at multiple points on realistic infrastructure undergoing complex three‑dimensional deformations.

Abstract

This paper reports the results of an analytical and experimental study to develop, calibrate, implement and evaluate the feasibility of a novel vision-based approach for obtaining direct measurements of the absolute displacement time history at selectable locations of dispersed civil infrastructure systems such as long-span bridges. The measurements were obtained using a highly accurate camera in conjunction with a laser tracking reference. Calibration of the vision system was conducted in the lab to establish performance envelopes and data processing algorithms to extract the needed information from the captured vision scene. Subsequently, the monitoring apparatus was installed in the vicinity of the Vincent Thomas Bridge in the metropolitan Los Angeles region. This allowed the deployment of the instrumentation system under realistic conditions so as to determine field implementation issues that need to be addressed. It is shown that the proposed approach has the potential of leading to an economical and robust system for obtaining direct, simultaneous, measurements at several locations of the displacement time histories of realistic infrastructure systems undergoing complex three-dimensional deformations.