Summary review of GPS technology for structural health monitoring

Over the last two decades, global positioning system (GPS) technology has been developed rapidly and recently applied to civil structures for appropriate monitoring of structural performance. Currently, the GPS technique can only be applied to flexible structures having lower modal frequency ranges, and it still has remaining issues when it comes to obtaining accurate measurements. However, the application of GPS is promising as a monitoring tool because it can measure dynamic characteristics and static displacements in real time, whereas the conventional monitoring system using accelerometers cannot measure static and quasi-static displacements. Furthermore, rapid advancements in GPS devices and algorithms can mitigate erroneous sources of GPS data, and integrated systems using GPS receivers with other supplement sensors are capable of providing accurate measurements. Therefore, GPS technology can provide accurate displacements of structures in real time, and stress and strain conditions of the structures can be computed using finite-element models and numerical analyses. It is also expected that damage localization and severity can be identified using the dynamic characteristics of structures obtained from GPS. This paper summarizes the use of GPS technology for structural health monitoring.