Optimal sensor layout for bridge health monitoring based on dual-structure coding genetic algorithm

A novel sensor layout method is proposed for bridge health monitoring. The aim of the method is to select sensor locations from a set of possible candidate positions for achieving the best identification of modal frequencies and mode shapes. Sensor layout problem is a combinatorial optimization problem and genetic algorithm is suitable to solve the problem. Commonly, one dimension coding is often adopted in the application of genetic algorithm, in the paper, the dual-structure coding, partially matched crossover, inversion mutation and adaptive probabilities of crossover and mutation are adopted to solve the sensor layout problem. In the end, through a simulation study of a continuous beam, it can be seen that the method can overcome the disadvantages of slow convergence rate and easily getting stuck at a local optimum when traditional genetic algorithm is applied, it accelerates convergence greatly and assures to find global optimum and can be applied in health monitoring of bridge structure widely.