Synchronization of Data Acquisition Systems for the Purpose of Structural Health Monitoring

Abstract

Abstract. This paper presents a technique for offline time synchronization of data acquisition systems for linear structures with proportional damping. The technique can be applied when direct synchronization of data acquisition systems is impossible or not sufficiently accurate, for example when multiple measurement nodes with different clock signals are embedded in a health monitoring network. The synchronization is based on the acquired dynamic response of the structure only, and does not require the acquisition of a shared sensor signal or a trigger signal. The time delay is identified from the spurious phase shift of the mode shape components that are obtained from system identification. A demonstration for a laboratory experiment on a cantilever steel beam shows that the proposed methodology can be used for accurate time synchronization, resulting in a significant improvement of the accuracy of the identified mode shapes.