Computational methodologies for optimal sensor placement in structural health monitoring: A review

Structural health monitoring plays an increasingly significant role in detecting damages for large and complex structures to ensure their serviceability and sustainability. Optimal sensor placement is critical in the structural health monitoring system as the sensor configuration directly impacts the quality of collected data used for structural health diagnosis. Therefore, this study presents a comprehensive review of computational methodologies for optimal sensor placement in structural health monitoring. The problem formulation of optimal sensor placement is first introduced, including commonly used evaluation criteria for sensor configurations. Then, various existing optimization methodologies for sensor placement are summarized and introduced in detail, especially for the evolutionary algorithms and their improved variants. Finally, the suitability of computational methods for specific structural health monitoring applications is also discussed. The main goal of this study is to deliver a comprehensive reference of computational methodologies for optimal sensor placement in structural health monitoring studies and applications. This article is concluded by highlighting the most widely utilized evaluation criteria and optimization methodologies for sensor configuration determination.