• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.521-535
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• 2022

Efficient management of deteriorating civil infrastructure is one of the most important research topics in many developed countries. In particular, the remote displacement measurement of bridges using linear variable differential transformers, global positioning systems, laser Doppler vibrometers, and computer vision technologies has been attempted extensively. This paper proposes a remote displacement measurement system using closed-circuit televisions (CCTVs) and a computer-vision-based method for in-situ bridge bearings having relatively large displacement due to temperature change in long term. The hardware of the system is composed of a reference target for displacement measurement, a CCTV to capture target images, a gateway to transmit images via a mobile network, and a central server to store and process transmitted images. The usage of CCTV capable of night vision capture and wireless data communication enable long-term 24-hour monitoring on wide range of bridge area. The computer vision algorithm to estimate displacement from the images involves image preprocessing for enhancing the circular features of the target, circular Hough transformation for detecting circles on the target in the whole field-of-view (FOV), and homography transformation for converting the movement of the target in the images into an actual expansion displacement. The simple target design and robust circle detection algorithm help to measure displacement using target images where the targets are far apart from each other. The proposed system is installed at the Tancheon Overpass located in Seoul, and field experiments are performed to evaluate the accuracy of circle detection and displacement measurements. The circle detection accuracy is evaluated using 28,542 images captured from 71 CCTVs installed at the testbed, and only 48 images (0.168%) fail to detect the circles on the target because of subpar imaging conditions. The accuracy of displacement measurement is evaluated using images captured for 17 days from three CCTVs; the average and root-mean-square errors are 0.10 and 0.131 mm, respectively, compared with a similar displacement measurement. The long-term operation of the system, as evaluated using 8-month data, shows high accuracy and stability of the proposed system.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.287-301
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• 2022

The machine-vision based structural displacement measurement methods are widely used due to its flexible deployment and non-contact measurement characteristics. The accuracy of vision measurement is directly related to the image resolution. In the field of computer vision, super-resolution reconstruction is an emerging method to improve image resolution. Particularly, the deep-learning based image super-resolution methods have shown great potential for improving image resolution and thus the machine-vision based measurement. In this article, we firstly review the latest progress of several deep learning based super-resolution models, together with the public benchmark datasets and the performance evaluation index. Secondly, we construct a binocular visual measurement platform to measure the distances of the adjacent corners on a chessboard that is universally used as a target when measuring the structure displacement via machine-vision based approaches. And then, several typical deep learning based super resolution algorithms are employed to improve the visual measurement performance. Experimental results show that super-resolution reconstruction technology can improve the accuracy of distance measurement of adjacent corners. According to the experimental results, one can find that the measurement accuracy improvement of the super resolution algorithms is not consistent with the existing quantitative performance evaluation index. Lastly, the current challenges and future trends of super resolution algorithms for visual measurement applications are pointed out.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.393-407
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• 2023

To assess structural condition in a non-destructive manner, computer vision-based structural health monitoring (SHM) has become a focus. Compared to traditional contact-type sensors, the advantages of computer vision-based measurement systems include lower installation costs and broader measurement areas. In this study, we propose a novel computer vision-based vibration measurement and coarse-to-fine damage assessment method for truss bridges. First, a deep learning model FairMOT is introduced to track the regions of interest (ROIs) that include joints to enhance the automation performance compared with traditional target tracking algorithms. To calculate the displacement of the tracked ROIs accurately, a normalized cross-correlation method is adopted to fine-tune the offset, while the Harris corner matching is utilized to correct the vibration displacement errors caused by the non-parallel between the truss plane and the image plane. Then, based on the advantages of the stochastic damage locating vector (SDLV) and Bayesian inference-based stochastic model updating (BI-SMU), they are combined to achieve the coarse-to-fine localization of the truss bridge's damaged elements. Finally, the severity quantification of the damaged components is performed by the BI-SMU. The experiment results show that the proposed method can accurately recognize the vibration displacement and evaluate the structural damage.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.15 no.9
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• pp.5854-5860
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• 2014

The on-site performance of a vision-based displacement measurement system (VDMS) was evaluated through a field test on a bridge. The VDMS used in this study is composed of a camera, a marker, a frame grabber, and a laptop. The system measures the displacement by attaching a marker at the location to be measured on the structure, by capturing images of that marker with a fixed rate, and by processing a series of images using a planar homography technique. The developed system was first validated from a laboratory test using a small-scale building structure. The VDMS was then employed in a field test on a railroad bridge with a KTX train running under various conditions. The on-site performance was evaluated by comparing the obtained displacement using the VDMS with the displacement measured from a laser Doppler vibrometer (LDV), which is an expensive and accurate displacement measurement device.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.409-419
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• 2023

Structural integrity can be accessed from dynamic deformations of structures. Moreover, dynamic deformations can be acquired from non-contact sensors such as video cameras. Kanade-Lucas-Tomasi (KLT) algorithm is one of the commonly used methods for motion tracking. However, averaging throughout the extracted features would induce bias in the measurement. In addition, pixel-wise measurements can be converted to physical units through camera intrinsic. Still, the depth information is unreachable without prior knowledge of the space information. The assigned homogeneous coordinates would then mismatch manually selected feature points, resulting in measurement errors during coordinate transformation. In this study, a two-stage optimization method for video-based measurements is proposed. The manually selected feature points are first optimized by minimizing the errors compared with the homogeneous coordinate. Then, the optimized points are utilized for the KLT algorithm to extract displacements through inverse projection. Two additional criteria are employed to eliminate outliers from KLT, resulting in more reliable displacement responses. The second-stage optimization subsequently fine-tunes the geometry of the selected coordinates. The optimization process also considers the number of interpolation points at different depths of an image to reduce the effect of out-of-plane motions. As a result, the proposed method is numerically investigated by using a truss bridge as a physics-based graphic model (PBGM) to extract high-accuracy displacements from recorded videos under various capturing angles and structural conditions.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.23 no.7
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• pp.87-94
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• 2019

Recently, the advance of accurate dynamic displacement measurement devices, such as GPS, computer vision, and optic laser sensor, has enhanced the structural monitoring technology. In this study, the dynamic displacement data was used to verify the applicability of the structural physical parameter estimation method through subspace system identification. The subspace system identification theory for estimating state-space model from measured data and physics-based interpretation for deriving the physical parameter of the estimated system are presented. Three-degree-freedom steel structures were fabricated for the experimental verification of the theory in this study. Laser displacement sensor and accelerometer were used to measure the displacement data of each floor and the acceleration data of the shaking table. Discrete state-space model generated from measured data was verified for precision. The discrete state-space model generated from the measured data extracted the floor stiffness of the building after accuracy verification. In addition, based on the story stiffness extracted from the state space model, five column stiffening and damage samples were set up to extract the change rate of story stiffness for each sample. As a result, in case of reinforcement and damage under the same condition, the stiffness change showed a high matching rate.