Computer vision-based remote displacement monitoring system for in-situ bridge bearings robust to large displacement induced by temperature change

Efficient management of deteriorating civil infrastructure is one of the most important research topics in many developed countries. In particular, the remote displacement measurement of bridges using linear variable differential transformers, global positioning systems, laser Doppler vibrometers, and computer vision technologies has been attempted extensively. This paper proposes a remote displacement measurement system using closed-circuit televisions (CCTVs) and a computer-vision-based method for in-situ bridge bearings having relatively large displacement due to temperature change in long term. The hardware of the system is composed of a reference target for displacement measurement, a CCTV to capture target images, a gateway to transmit images via a mobile network, and a central server to store and process transmitted images. The usage of CCTV capable of night vision capture and wireless data communication enable long-term 24-hour monitoring on wide range of bridge area. The computer vision algorithm to estimate displacement from the images involves image preprocessing for enhancing the circular features of the target, circular Hough transformation for detecting circles on the target in the whole field-of-view (FOV), and homography transformation for converting the movement of the target in the images into an actual expansion displacement. The simple target design and robust circle detection algorithm help to measure displacement using target images where the targets are far apart from each other. The proposed system is installed at the Tancheon Overpass located in Seoul, and field experiments are performed to evaluate the accuracy of circle detection and displacement measurements. The circle detection accuracy is evaluated using 28,542 images captured from 71 CCTVs installed at the testbed, and only 48 images (0.168%) fail to detect the circles on the target because of subpar imaging conditions. The accuracy of displacement measurement is evaluated using images captured for 17 days from three CCTVs; the average and root-mean-square errors are 0.10 and 0.131 mm, respectively, compared with a similar displacement measurement. The long-term operation of the system, as evaluated using 8-month data, shows high accuracy and stability of the proposed system.