Monitoring the dynamic response of a pedestrian bridge by using low-cost GNSS receivers

Xue, Chenyu; Psimoulis, Panos A.

Abstract

The development of low-cost GNSS receivers with carrier-phase measurement capacity has led to low-budget GNSS applications of higher accuracy and precision. Recent studies have mainly been carried out with those low-cost receivers for landslide monitoring and achieved promising results. In this study, the performance of two closely-spaced high-rate low-cost GNSS receivers was assessed against the robotic total station (RTS) and geodetic GNSS receiver in monitoring the dynamic response of a major pedestrian suspension bridge at the mid-span. Potential accuracy improvement by the combination of two low-cost GNSS time-series was also examined. It was proved that multi-GNSS solution is required to resolve potential outliers and offsets of the low-cost GNSS time-series, due to cycle slip induced errors. The analysis of the low-cost GNSS time-series showed that the low-cost GNSS receivers can estimate (i) the main dominant frequencies of the bridge with the same accuracy as the geodetic-grade GNSS receiver and (ii) the amplitude of the bridge response with difference of ∼3 mm with respect the geodetic GNSS receiver due to higher noise level. This study revealed the prospect of utilising low-cost GNSS sensors in monitoring dynamic displacement with frequency of 1–3 Hz, corresponding to relatively rigid structures (e.g., short span bridges, etc.).

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Feb 28, 2023
• Online Publication Date: Mar 23, 2023
• Publication Date: Jun 1, 2023
• Deposit Date: May 3, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: May 3, 2023
• Journal: Engineering Structures
• Print ISSN: 0141-0296
• Electronic ISSN: 1873-7323
• Publisher: Elsevier BV
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 284
• Article Number: 115993
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.engstruct.2023.115993
• Keywords: Bridge monitoring; Dynamic response; Multi-GNSS time-series; Low-cost GNSS; Spectral analysis
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/19465967
• Publisher URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0141029623004078?via%3Dihub
• Additional Information: This article is maintained by: Elsevier; Article Title: Monitoring the dynamic response of a pedestrian bridge by using low-cost GNSS receivers; Journal Title: Engineering Structures; CrossRef DOI link to publisher maintained version: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.engstruct.2023.115993; Content Type: article; Copyright: © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.