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. 2021 Sep 15;21(18):6191.
doi: 10.3390/s21186191.

Development of a Low-Cost System for the Accurate Measurement of Structural Vibrations

Seyedmilad Komarizadehasl  1 , Behnam Mobaraki  2 , Haiying Ma  3 , Jose-Antonio Lozano-Galant  2 , Jose Turmo  1
Affiliations

Development of a Low-Cost System for the Accurate Measurement of Structural Vibrations

Seyedmilad Komarizadehasl et al. Sensors (Basel). .

Abstract

Nowadays, engineers are widely using accelerometers to record the vibration of structures for structural verification purposes. The main obstacle for using these data acquisition systems is their high cost, which limits its use to unique structures with a relatively high structural health monitoring budget. In this paper, a Cost Hyper-Efficient Arduino Product (CHEAP) has been developed to accurately measure structural accelerations. CHEAP is a system that is composed of five low-cost accelerometers that are connected to an Arduino microcontroller as their data acquisition system. Test results show that CHEAP not only has a significantly lower price (14 times cheaper in the worst-case scenario) compared with other systems used for comparison but also shows better accuracy on low frequencies for low acceleration amplitudes. Moreover, the final output results of Fast Fourier Transformation (FFT) assessments showed a better observable resolution for CHEAP than the studied control systems.

Keywords: Internet of Things (IoT); accelerometer; arduino; low-cost sensors; structural health monitoring (SHM).

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Control systems: (a) Data acquisition system for piezoelectric accelerometers and (b) Positioning of the accelerometers.
Figure 1
Figure 1
Control systems: (a) Data acquisition system for piezoelectric accelerometers and (b) Positioning of the accelerometers.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Developed signal and acquisition systems: (a) Schematic CHEAP and (b) CHEAP on the experiment jack.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Diagram of needed steps for proposed kit data acquisition.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Comparing MA error of the two control systems with CHEAP.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Estimated MA error for different number of sensors: one sensor (a), two sensors (b), three sensors (c), four sensors (d).
Figure 5
Figure 5
Estimated MA error for different number of sensors: one sensor (a), two sensors (b), three sensors (c), four sensors (d).
Figure 6
Figure 6
FFT data process for 0.5 Hz experiment errors for four sensors (a) and five sensors (b).
Figure 7
Figure 7
Price comparison of CHEAP with control systems.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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