Experimental Vibration Analysis for Civil Engineering Structures

143

Microwave interferometer for ambient vibration measurement on

civil engineering structures: 1. Principles of the radar technique
and laboratory tests
G. Bernardini, G. De Pasquale, A. Bicci, M. Marra, F. Coppi, P. Ricci
IDS Ingegneria Dei Sistemi, Pisa, Italy

M. Pieraccini
Department of Electronics and Telecommunications of University of Florence, Florence, Italy

ABSTRACT: This paper describes a new radar system, named IBIS-S, designed for dynamic
monitoring of large structures. The radar, based on interferometric and wide band waveform
principles, is able to measure the displacement response of several points of a structure with accuracy of the order of hundredth of millimetres. In addition to its non-contact feature, the IBIS-S
system provides other advantages including quick set-up time, a wide frequency range of response and portability. In the paper, the new vibration measuring system and its working principles are described together with the results of laboratory tests carried out to evaluate the intrinsic performance of the equipment. Furthermore, the application of the sensor to the
measurement of ambient vibration response of full-scale structures is summarized in a companion paper.

1 INTRODUCTION
As a result of a long term research activity performed in collaboration with the Department of
Electronics and Telecommunication of the Florence University (Pieraccini et al. 2004, Pieraccini
et al. 2005), IDS company has developed an innovative radar system, called IBIS, for noncontact measurement of displacements. The specialised system aimed to non-contact vibration
measurements (Farrar et al. 1999) of civil engineering structures is named IBIS-S. The design
and development activities were partially carried out in the framework of a funded Italian project named PARNASO-MATER, started in 2001 and lasted three years.
Since the last months of 2005, IDS has also started a joint research with the Department of
Structural Engineering of the Milan Polytechnic, addressing the task to assess and validate the
system results and performances for dynamic testing of full-scale structures (Bernardini, De
Pasquale, Gallino & Gentile 2007).
Hereinafter the paper continues with the description of IBIS-S radar sensor and of the results
obtained in a laboratory test performed to evaluate the accuracy and the intrinsic performance of
the equipment.
2 ADVANTAGES OF RADAR TECHNOLOGY
The IBIS-S microwave interferometer (Figure 1) is a radar sensor apt to simultaneously monitor
the response of several points belonging to a large structure, providing for each point the displacement response.
With respect to conventional sensors, like accelerometers, the use of a non-contact radarbased sensor overcomes some operational limitations related to contact sensor networks:

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Figure 1. View of the new IBIS-S sensor.

Figure 2. Passive radar reflector.

Table 1. IBIS-S operational characteristics.

Parameter
Maximum operational distance (for minimum 40Hz sampling frequency
Maximum sampling frequency
Displacement sensitivity (accuracy)
Operative weather condition

500.00 m
100.00 Hz
0.01 mm
All

a) remote structural monitoring (remote sensing) can be performed without the need of access-

ing the structure to install sensors or optical targets. In special cases, when the structure is not
sufficiently reflective to electromagnetic waves or when displacement of specific points on
the structure must be measured, simple passive radar reflectors (Figure 2) can be quickly and
easily fixed;
b) the microwave interferometer is quick and easy to install and can be used both day and night
and in all weather conditions;
c) although mode shapes of a structure are routinely estimated using conventional accelerometers or other sensors, these sensors do not provide a direct measurement of displacement,
which is often of interest for the study of civil engineering structures in operational condition.
On the contrary, the new radar system simultaneously measures the displacements of several
points in the area illuminated by the antenna beam with accuracy ranging between 1/100 and
1/10 mm. The displacement response of a target surface relative to the interferometer is
measured by analysing the phase information in microwaves reflected on the vibrating target
surface;
d) the sensor can be used to detect either static displacements or the transient response in real
time, thus avoiding diverted quantities.
Furthermore, the possibility of operating even at a significant distance and without the need
of installing and wiring sensors, permits the investigation during emergency situations when
monitoring activity can be required to ensure the safety of people.
The main operational characteristics of IBIS-S system are summarised in Table 1.
3 DESCRIPTION OF IBIS-S SENSOR
The described radar sensor consists of the following modules:
1. Sensor module. This unit generates, transmits and receives the electromagnetic signals which
will be processed in order to measure the displacement of the investigated structure. The sensor module is a coherent radar which consists of a typical super heterodyne architecture, as
shown in Figure 3. The base-band section is based on a Direct Digital Synthesis (DDS) device in order to obtain fast frequency hopping. A tuneable sine wave is generated through a
high-speed digital to analog converter that reads a sine lookup table in response to a digital
tuning word and a precision clock source. The Radio-Frequency (RF) section radiates at a

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central frequency of 16.75 GHz with a maximum bandwidth of 300 MHz. A final calibration
section provides the necessary phase stability; design specifications on phase uncertainty are
suitable for measuring short-term displacements with a range uncertainty lower than 0.01
mm.
The module is installed on a tripod equipped with a rotating head, allowing the sensor to be
orientated in the desired direction. This module has an USB interface for connection with the
control PC and an interface for the power supply module in addition to two horn antennas deputed to the transmission and reception of the electromagnetic waves.
2. Control PC, installed with the system management software. The control PC is used to configure the acquisition parameters, manage and store measurements and view the initial results
in real time;
3. Power supply unit, providing power to the system through a 12V battery unit.

DDS

TX

LF

IF

RF
RX

Figure 3. Sensor head sketch.

4 PRINCIPLES OF THE ADOPTED RADAR TECHNOLOGY

The IBIS-S sensor is based on two well-known radar techniques:
a) the Stepped-Frequency Continuous Wave (SF-CW) technique, allowing the system to resolve
the scenario in the range direction (see e.g. Taylor 2001), i.e. to detect the position of target
surfaces placed at different distances from the sensor;
b) the Differential Interferometric technique (see e.g. Henderson & Lewis 1998), allowing the
system to measure the displacements of the structure illuminated by the antenna beam by
comparing the phase information of the back-scattered electromagnetic waves collected in
different times.
4.1 SF-CW technique
The ability to determine range (i.e. distance) by measuring the time for the radar signal to
propagate to the target and back is surely the distinguishing and most important characteristic of
radar systems. No other sensors can measure range to the accuracy possible with radar, at such
long range and in all weather conditions.
Two or more targets, illuminated by the radar, are individually detectable if they produce different echoes. The resolution is a measure of the minimum distance between two targets at
which they can still be detected individually. The range resolution refers to the minimum separation that can be detected along the radars line of sight.
Pulse radars use short time duration pulses to obtain high range resolution. For a pulse radar,
the range resolution r is related to the pulse duration by the following (Taylor 2001):

r =

c
2

(1)

where c is the speed of light in free space. Since the pulse duration is equal to the reciprocal of
the frequency bandwidth B of the pulse (see e.g. Marple 1987):

1
B

(2)

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the range resolution may be expressed as:

r =

c
2B

(3)

Eq. (3) highlights that increasing the frequency bandwidth of the electromagnetic wave transmitted by the radar enables higher range resolution (corresponding to a smaller numerical value
of r); hence, closely spaced targets can be detected along the radars line of sight.
The SF-CW technique exploits the above concept to provide the IBIS-S sensor with range resolution capability.
The SF-CW technique is based on the synthesis and transmission of a burst of N monochromatic pulses equally and incrementally spaced in frequency (with fixed frequency step of f)
within a bandwidth B:

B = ( N 1)f

(4)

The N monochromatic pulses sample the scenario in the frequency domain similarly to a
short pulse with a large bandwidth B. In a SF-CW radar, the signal source dwells at each frequency fk = fo + kf (k=0,1,2, , N1) long enough to allows the received echoes to reach the
receiver. Hence, the duration of each monochromatic pulse (Tpulse) depends on the maximum
distance (Rmax) to be observed in the scenario:

Tpulse

2 Rmax
c

(5)

At each sampled time instant, both I (In-phase) and Q (Quadrature) components of the received signals are acquired so that the resulting data consist of a vector of N complex samples, representing the frequency response measured at N discrete frequencies. By taking the
Inverse Discrete Fourier Transform (IDFT) the response is reconstructed in the time domain of
the radar: each complex sample in this domain represents the signal (echo) from a range (distance) interval of length cTpulse/2.
The amplitude range profile of the radar echoes is then obtained by calculating the magnitude of
each bin of the IDFT of acquired vector samples. This range profile gives a one dimensional
map of scattering objects in the viewable space in function of their relative distance from the
equipment.
In the IBIS-S sensor, the SF-CW technique was implemented to obtain a range resolution of
0.50 m, independently from the maximum operative distance; in other words, the sensor is able
to distinguish two different targets if their relative distance is greater than 0.50 m. The range
resolution area is termed range bin.

Figure 4. Range resolution concept.

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Figure 5. Range profile of a full-scale bridge (Bernardini, De Pasquale, Gallino & Gentile 2007).

The concept of range profile is better illustrated in Figure 4; peculiarly Figure 4 shows an
ideal range profile obtained when the radar transmitting beam illuminates a series of targets at
different distances and different angles from the system. As previously stated, the range profile
refers to N target points, being 0.50 m apart.
Figure 5 refers to the application of the SF-CW technique in the dynamic testing of a fullscale bridge (Bernardini, De Pasquale, Gallino & Gentile 2007). Figure 5 shows a view of the
investigated bridge, placed in the town of Capriate (about 30 km far from Milan, Italy) and the
typical range profile of the bridge. The peaks in the plot of Figure 5 correspond to "good" measurement points and the sensor can be used to simultaneously detect the displacement and the
transient response of these points.
4.2 Differential Interferometry technique
Once the range profile of a structure has been determined at uniform sampling intervals, the displacement response of each range bin is evaluated by using the Differential Interferometry technique. Interferometry is a powerful technique that allows the displacement of a scattering object
to be evaluated by comparing the phase information of the electromagnetic waves reflected by
the object in different time instants (see e.g. Henderson & Lewis 1998).
Generally speaking, when of a target surface moves with respect to the sensor module (emitting and back-receiving the electromagnetic wave) at least a phase shift arises between the signals reflected by the target surface at different times. Hence, the displacement of the investigated object is determined from the phase shift measured by the radar sensor at the discrete
acquisition times. The radial displacement dp (i.e. the displacement along the direction of wave
propagation) and the phase shift are linked by the following:

dp

(6)

where is the wavelength of the electromagnetic signal.

The first applications using the interferometric technique were performed by satellite to detect the displacement of large areas of terrain, with a resolution at ground level of a few meters;
now the same technique can be used with radars installed on the ground, permitting the illumination of specific areas with a very high range resolution (Henderson & Lewis 1998).

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dp

Figure 6. Radial displacement vs. projected displacement.

The sensor module emits a series of electromagnetic waves for the entire measurement period, and processes phase information at regular time intervals to find any displacement occurring between one emission and the next. It is worth underlining that the interferometric technique (6) provides a measurement of the radial displacement of all the range bins of the
structure illuminated by the antenna beam; once dp has been evaluated, the vertical displacement
d can be easily found by making some geometric projection, as shown in Figure 6:

d p = d sin( )

(7)

However, since (Figure 6):

sin( ) =

h
r

(8)

the vertical displacement is given by:

d = dp

r
.
h

(9)

Typical measured displacement time-history at one point of a full-scale bridge in operational

condition (traffic excitation) is shown in Figure 7.
0.5

Vertical Displacement [mm]

-0.5

-1

Zoom
for 20sec acquisition time
Displacement of a bridge point at 52.2m distant from IBIS-S
0.5

-1.5

-2.5

100

200

300

time [sec]

400

500

600

Vertical Displacement [mm]

-2

-0.5

-1

-1.5

-2

-2.5
370

372

374

376

378

380

382

384

386

388

time [sec]

Figure 7. Left: typical displacement signal measured on a bridge. Right: 20 s displacement zoom.

390

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149

7m

Figure 8. Mass-spring system tested in laboratory.

Figure 9. Left: typical range profile of the test scenario. Right: Displacement of the mass-spring system
measured during the laboratory test.

5 RESULTS OF EXPERIMENTAL TEST IN IDS LABORATORY

Before to use the radar sensor in the field on full-scale structures, various laboratory tests were
carried out to assess the intrinsic performances of the equipment. Among these tests, the free vibration response of a simple mass-spring system, provided by the Milan Polytechnic, was measured. The natural frequency of the mass-spring system, shown in Figure 8, was 0.80 Hz.
The test set up was arranged installing the mass-spring system, modified by adding a small
and light corner reflector, in front of the IBIS-S sensor at a distance of about 7.0 m. Figure 8
shows a schematic of test set up and a photograph of the oscillator equipped with the corner reflector. The control PC of the sensor has been configured in order to measure targets up to a distance of 50.0 m and with a scenario sampling frequency of 50 Hz.
Figure 9 shows the typical range profile of the test scenario and the free-damped displacement measured by the radar sensor in about 1000 s of observation. Figure 9 clearly highlights
that: a) the radar sensor correctly detected the position of the oscillator and b) the measured
time-history perfectly corresponds to what expected for a lightly damped s.d.o.f. mechanical
system.
In order to better display the characteristics of the measured response, Figures 10-12 show
temporal zooms of the displacement time-history. Peculiarly:
- Figure 10 shows the beginning of the time window acquired for 60 s, before and after the
equilibrium position of the simple oscillator has been perturbed;

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- Figure 11 illustrates two different acquired time windows, clearly revealing the excellent
quality of the measurement;
- Figure 12 shows the final part of the acquired time window, corresponding to the end of the
free-damped motion.
Spring displacement
15

Displacement [mm]

10
5
0
-5
-10
-15
0

10

20

30

40

50

60

time [sec]

Figure 10. First 60 seconds of acquisition, before and after excitation of the mass-spring system.
Spring displacement
0.15

10

0.1

Displacement [mm]

Displacement [mm]

Spring displacement
15

5
0
-5
-10
-15
100

0.05
0
-0.05
-0.1
-0.15

105

110

time [sec]

115

120

-0.2
800

805

810

815

820

time [sec]

Figure 11. Zooms of measured displacement in [100120 s] and [800820 s] time intervals.

Figure 12. Left: final part of the free-damped motion. Right: Fourier amplitude spectrum of the freedamped vibration and observed natural frequency of the oscillator.

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151

The inspection of Figures 10-12 confirms the very good quality of the measurements and
suggests that, at least in a laboratory test, the displacement sensitivity of the sensor is of the order of 0.010.02 mm.
Finally, in order to detect the natural frequency of the oscillator, the Fourier amplitude spectrum of the free-damped displacement was computed (Figure 12) and an oscillation frequency
of 0.78 Hz (slightly lower than the theoretical one due to the additional mass of the corner reflector, see Figure 8), was estimated.
6 CONCLUSIONS AND FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS
A new non-contact vibration measuring system, named IBIS-S and designed for dynamic testing and/or monitoring of large structures, has been presented in the paper. The new system is
an interferometric SF-CW radar system (i.e. employs step-frequency continuous waveform to
resolve the scenario in the range direction and the differential interferometric technique to
measure the displacement transient responses of a structure), capable of measuring the displacement response of several points of a structure.
The described new sensor exhibits various operational advantages with respect to contact
sensor networks and, at the same time, provides a direct measurement of displacement, which
is often of interest for the study of civil engineering structures in operational condition; furthermore, based on the behavior of the system components, it has to be expected that the displacements sensitivity is ranging between 1/100 and 1/10 mm.
The accuracy of the sensor has been estimated in laboratory tests of a simple mass-spring
system; the free vibration tests carried out on the oscillator confirm displacement sensitivity
of the order of 0.010.02 mm; in addition, the laboratory tests suggested both an excellent
quality of the displacement measurements and a good operating stability of the equipment.
Since the sensor seems potentially ready to be used in the field, some further tests have
been performed to measure the ambient vibration response of full-scale structures. The results
of latter tests are described and discussed in the second part of this paper (Bernardini, De
Pasquale, Gallino & Gentile 2007).
7 REFERENCES
Farrar C.R., Darling T.W., Migliori A., Baker W. E. 1999. Microwave interferometers for non-contact vibration measurements on large structures. Mech. Syst. Signal Process., 13(2): 241253.
Bernardini G., De Pasquale G., Gallino N., Gentile C. 2007. Microwave interferometer for ambient vibration measurements on civil engineering structures: 2. Application to full-scale bridges. Proc.
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Henderson F.M., Lewis A.J. (Eds.) 1998. Manual of Remote Sensing. Principles and Applications of Imaging Radar. 3rd Ed., Wiley & Sons.
Marple S.L. Jr. 1987. Digital spectral analysis with applications. Prentice-Hall.
Pieraccini M., Fratini M., Parrini F., Macaluso G., Atzeni C. 2004. Highspeed CW step-frequency coherent radar for dynamic monitoring of civil engineering structures. Electron. Lett., 40(14): 907908.
Pieraccini M., Fratini M., Parrini F., Pinelli G. Atzeni C. 2005. Dynamic survey of architectural heritage
by high-speed microwave interferometry. IEEE Geosci. Remote Sens. Lett., 2(1): 2830.
Taylor J.D. (Ed.) 2001. Ultra-wideband radar technology. CRC Press.

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