Energy Center Detection in Light Scanning Sensors for Structural Health Monitoring Accuracy Enhancement

This paper introduces a novel electronic circuit that has to be embedded in a photodiode sensor as an integrated circuit board for electronic signal processing that detects the energy center of an optical signal, which represents the most accurate position measurement from a light emitter source mounted on a structure (such as a building, a bridge, or a mine). The optical scanning sensor for structural health monitoring proposed is a flexible system that can operate with a coherent or incoherent light emitter source. It is conformable to any kind of structure surfaces and data storage budget thanks to the signal processing stage being embedded into the sensor and does not require additional software processing, which reduces the time and memory spacing requirements for information recording. The theoretical principle of operation, as well as the technological and experimental aspects of design, development, and validation is presented.