Engineering Structures 260 (2022) 114223

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Engineering Structures
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/engstruct

Unified method for fully automated modal identification and tracking with
consideration of sensor deployment
Min He , Peng Liang *, Yang Zhang , Fan Yang , Jiu-xian Liu
Highway School, Chang’an University, Xi’an, Shaanxi, China

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords:
Structural health monitoring
Automated modal identification and tracking
Modified modal observability correlation
Sensor deployment
Closely spaced modes
Spatial aliasing
This paper proposes a modal
identification method which can fully
automated modal identification and tracking
method with very few sensors, for structures
with closely spaced modes. the proposed
method does not require many sensors and
manual intervention, which is the selling point
of the paper.
Automated modal identification and tracking provides the key technique for modal parameters based structural
condition evaluation. However, the existing automated modal identification and tracking methods have limi­
tations for situation with very few sensors deployed and require manual intervention. This paper proposes a
unified fully automated modal identification and tracking method that can be used for structures with many or
very few sensors deployed, for closely spaced modes with severe spatial aliasing and for structures with high
flexibility or rigidity. A new index, which is called Modified Modal Observability Correlation, is proposed to
estimate the similarity of two modes. New spurious mode elimination method and fully automated mode sep­
aration and tracking methods are proposed to realize the automated modal identification and tracking. The
feasibility and novelty of the proposed method are validated using in-field monitoring data from a long span
suspension bridge with high flexibility and a short span bridge with high rigidity and closely spaced modes.
Automated modal identification and tracking for situations with many and very few sensors deployed for the two
bridges are conducted, and extreme situation of closely spaced modes with spatial aliasing in mode shape is also
considered to prove the novelty of the proposed method. Comparisons with existing mainstream methods are also
conducted. The results show that the proposed method yields the right identification and tracking results in all
situations, showing novelty in automated modal identification and tracking for structures with closely spaced
modes having severe spatial aliasing when only very few sensors are deployed.

1. Introduction
In the last decades, structural health monitoring has developed
rapidly and many Structural Health Monitoring Systems (SHMS) have
been established for bridges [1–3], buildings [4,5], dams [6,7] and wind
turbines [8,9], etc. With such a development, data driven structural
condition assessment has developed rapidly because SHMS provides
sufficient true structural response data to track the evolution of struc­
tural condition. Among all the condition evaluation methods, modal
parameters based evaluation is one of the most popular ones because the
evolution of long-term modal parameters is capable of reflecting the
change of the dynamic characteristic of a structure. To obtain the long-
term modal parameters, the automated modal identification is required
and tracking the modes identified from successive response data sets is
indispensable.
Automated modal identification is widely studied, such as the sta­
bilization diagram based automated modal identification [10–12], the
Least Squares Complex Frequency Domain method [13], the Frequency
Domain Decomposition method [14–16] and Eigen system Realization
Algorithm [17]. Among all the automated modal identification methods,
the one focusing on interpreting the stabilization diagram is the most
popular [18,19]. The stabilization diagram is a plot which shows many
computed modes using system identification method such as Stochastic
Subspace Identification (SSI) [11,20] for a large number of system or­
ders. Automated modal identification based on stabilization diagram
aims to remove the scattered spurious modes caused due to the over­
estimation of the system order and extract the vertical alignments in the
stabilization diagram formed by potential physical modes. This is ful­
filled with two main procedures, namely automated removing the
spurious modes and automated separating of potential physical modes.
The key point of removing the spurious modes is to distinguish the
physical modes from the spurious ones [21]. Modal assurance criterion
(MAC) is widely used in this procedure to discriminate the physical and
spurious modes. MAC is an index which is used to estimate the similarity

* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: hemin0214@chd.edu.cn (M. He), lpchdlp@163.com (P. Liang), zhangyangjob@chd.edu.cn (Y. Zhang), yfmail1991@sina.cn (F. Yang),
liujiuxianjob@chd.edu.cn (J.-x. Liu).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.engstruct.2022.114223
Received 28 September 2021; Received in revised form 25 February 2022; Accepted 31 March 2022
Available online 5 April 2022
0141-0296/© 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
M. He et al.
of mode shapes. For similar (same) modes, the MAC value would be
close to 1 while it is close to 0 for dissimilar modes because of the mode
shape orthogonality. Reynders et al. [10] proposed to utilize MAC as one
of the indices to compute the similarity of different modes and use the k-
means clustering method to automatically remove the spurious modes.
This method has been used and improved in many following studies
[22]. However, it has been proven not very efficient. He et al. [12]
proposed to use the modal uncertainty to eliminate the spurious mode,
but calculating the modal uncertainty requires too much computing
time. Fan et al. [21] proposed to eliminate the spurious modes using
mean phase deviation (MPD) threshold, but it needs manual interven­
tion. In the procedure of automated mode separation, the hierarchical,
non-hierarchical and statistical based clustering methods are all intro­
duced. Reynders et al. [10] proposed to use hierarchical clustering
method to automatically separate the modes into several groups. How­
ever, it has been proved to have less robustness. This method is
improved recently by Zini et al. [23], in which they proposed quantified
indices to determine the best input for SSI method, define the best cut-off
distance for hierarchical clustering and validate the identified modal
parameters. He et al. [12] proposed to use non-hierarchical clustering
method to fulfill the mode separation, but the result highly relies on the
spurious mode elimination results and unstable results would be ob­
tained if undesired spurious mode elimination result is obtained. The
statistical based clustering method [21,24] is based on the assumption
that the identification results obey normal distribution, which has been
proved not correct. Beside the limitation of utilized methodologies, all
the relevant studies used MAC as the index in both procedures to esti­
mate the similarity of different modes. However, MAC would fail for
situations in which very few sensors are deployed because under this
circumstance different orders of modes would probably have the same
Fig. 1. Flowchart of the proposed automated modal identification and tracking method.
2
Engineering Structures 260 (2022) 114223
mode shape, which is called spatial aliasing phenomenon [25,26].
However, this situation is seldom considered in the existing automated
modal identification studies.
Modal tracking is conducted after the modal parameters are auto­
matically identified, and it aims to link the same order of modal pa­
rameters in current analysis to those from the former ones. Existing
modal tracking methods require manual intervention to define a set of
manually selected modes as the baseline modes. Then the similarities,
normally the relative difference of frequency (df ) and MAC, between the
modes identified in current analysis and the baseline ones are computed,
and the mode in the current analysis is linked to the baseline one if the
computed similarities meet the manually defined thresholds
[5–8,24,27,28]. Some methods require environmental data [29] and use
complex model, such as Gaussian mixture model [30] and density based
clustering [29], as the tool to estimate the similarity. These methods
require complex transformation and prior training of a complex model
and are not appropriate for online tracking. Three limitations exist in the
existing tracking methods. One is that the baseline modes need to be
manually defined and cover all the modes corresponding to the theo­
retical ones. If some of the modes are missed in the baseline ones, the
corresponding identified modes in the following analysis would not be
tracked. The second problem is that the thresholds need to be manually
tuned carefully. If the thresholds are not set strict, closely spaced modes,
especially for modes with spatial aliasing when few sensors are
deployed, would be misclassified. However, if the thresholds are set
strict, some physical modes not meeting the thresholds would be missed
for some other orders of modes. Besides, the manually defined thresh­
olds are not always widely suitable for every order of modes because
they normally have different discreteness. The third problem is the
spatial aliasing phenomenon for situation with few sensors deployed.
M. He et al. Engineering Structures 260 (2022) 114223

Under this circumstance, MAC would lose ability in distinguishing the

C
different modes and wrong tracking would happen for closely spaced ⎡ ⎤
mode. Even though some methods are proposed to track the modes for CA
⎢ ⎥
situation with a few sensors deployed [29,31], they either require O=⎢ 2 ⎥
(1)
⎣ CA ⎦
complex manual intervention and prior training or are not universally
⋮
suitable for structures with different flexibility (rigidity).
This paper proposes a unified fully automated method for modal CAn− 1

identification and tracking. A new index for estimating the similarity of

two modes is proposed. New spurious mode elimination method and
automated mode separation and tracking method are proposed. Case
studies based on in-field monitoring data of a long span suspension
bridge and a short span continuously supported bridge under situations
with many and very few sensors deployed are conducted to validate the
feasibility and novelty of the proposed method. Furthermore, examples
of closely spaced modes with severe spatial aliasing phenomenon are
conducted, and comparisons with existing methods are also conducted
to prove the novelty of the proposed method.
2. Proposed automated modal identification
The proposed method consists of two processes, namely the auto­
mated modal identification and automated modal tracking. The pro­
posed automated modal identification method is based on automatic
interpretation of stabilization diagram and consists of three procedures,
where O denotes the observability matrix; C and A are the system
matrices in SSI method; n is twice of the manually defined maximum
system order N for SSI method in system identification. The observ­
ability matrix is a measure of observability of the model. In modal
identification for a discrete model in SSI method, the system is fully
observable and O is full column rank. Then O can be projected to the
modal coordinate through a transformation x(t) = Ψx(t), where Ψ de­
notes the eigenvector matrix of system matrix A in SSI method and is
defined as.
Ψ = [Φ1 , Φ2 , ⋯, Φnx ] (2)
where Φi denotes the ith eigenvector of system matrix A, and calculated
as AΦi = λi Φi , where λi denotes the ith eigenvalue corresponding to Φi .
Then, C and A can be updated as C = CΨ and A = Ψ− 1 AΨ = Λ, and the
observability matrix can be updated as.

CΨ
⎡ ⎤ ⎡ ⎤ ⎡ ⎤
CΨΛ CΦ1 ⋯ CΦnx φ1 ⋯ φn
⎢ ⎥ ⎢ ⎥ ⎢ ⎥
O=⎢
⎣ CΨΛ2 ⎥ = ⎢
⎦ ⎣ ⋮ ⋱ ⋮ ⎥=⎢
⎦ ⎣ ⋮ ⋱ ⋮ ⎥ = [ υ1
⎦ ⋯ υn ] (3)
⋮ CΦ1 λn−1 1
⋯ CΦn λn−n 1
φ1 λn−1 1
⋯ φn λn−n 1

CΨΛn− 1

which are (1) system identification, (2) stabilization diagram clearance

and (3) automatic mode separation. System identification aims to Then the Modal Observability Correlation (MOC), which estimates
compute as many as possible mode candidates to establish the stabili­ the similarity between the modal observability vectors υi and υj , can be
zation diagram and is conducted based on SSI method. SSI method is calculated as.
widely used and explained in many existing studies [11,20] and there­ ⃒ H ⃒( )2
⃒ H ⃒2
fore is not repeated in this study. Detailed information of the other ⃒υ υj ⃒ ⃒φ φj ⃒ 1 − λn λn (1 − λ2 )(1 − λ2 )
i i j i j
procedures is provided in the subsequent sections. The whole process MOC = H i
= H ⃒
⃒
⃒(
⃒ 2n
(4)
(υi υi )(υH υ
j j ) |φ φ |* φH
φ 1 − λ λ )*(1 − λ )(1 − λ2n
j )
can be explained in Fig. 1. In the following sections, a proposed new
i i j j i j i

index is firstly introduced. Then the procedures of the proposed auto­
mated modal identification and tracking method are explained in detail.
2.1. Modified modal observability correlation
In this study, the Modified Modal Observability Correlation (MMOC)
is proposed to estimate the similarity of two modes to overcome the
limitation of MAC when spatial aliasing phenomenon occurs in situation
in which very few sensors are deployed. In SSI method, the observability
matrix can be defined to indicate the observability of the system [26] as.
In automated modal identification, the maximum system order N of
SSI method would be set very big, normally bigger than 100, for the
purpose of precise estimation of modal parameters and identification of
weakly exited modes. If the eigenvalue is very big, λni would also be very
big. Sometime it would exceed the maximum value that a double-
precision number can represent, which would lead to a failure of
computing. To solve this problem, the log transformation is applied to
Equation (4) as.

⃒ )2 ⃒⃒ ⃒( ⃒
⃒ H ⃒ ⃒(
⃒φ φj ⃒*⃒ 1 − λn λn ⃒*⃒⃒ 1 − λ2 )(1 − λ2 )⃒⃒
i ⃒ i j ⃒ i j
LogMOC = log ⃒ ⃒ ⃒( ) ⃒2 ⃒⃒( ⃒
⃒ *⃒ 1 − λ2n )(1 − λ2n )⃒⃒
i φi |* φj φj * 1 − λi λj
|φH ⃒ H ⃒ ⃒
i j
[ ⃒ ⃒ ⃒ ⃒ ⃒ ⃒ ⃒ ⃒] [ ⃒ ⃒ ⃒ ⃒ ⃒ ⃒ ⃒ ⃒ ⃒ ⃒]
⃒ n n⃒ ⃒ 2⃒ ⃒ H ⃒ ⃒ ⃒
= 2*log⃒φH ⃒ ⃒ 2⃒
i φj + 2*log⃒1 − λi λj ⃒ + log 1 − λi + log⃒1 − λj ⃒ − log⃒φH ⃒ ⃒ ⃒ ⃒ 2n ⃒
i φi + log⃒φj φj ⃒ + 2*log 1 − λi λj + log 1 − λi + log⃒1 − λ2n
j ⃒

= Mφ + Mλ (5)

3
M. He et al. Engineering Structures 260 (2022) 114223

where Mφ and Mλ denote the components relating with mode shape and and the number of the potential physical modes can be estimated as.
eigenvalue, which are.
⃒ ⃒ ⃒ H ⃒ ⃒ ⃒ SP = k*N/2 (12)
⃒ H ⃒
Mφ = 2*log⃒φH ⃒ ⃒ ⃒
i φj − log φi φi − log⃒φj φj ⃒
It can be seen that SP is not influenced by SA , and the number of the
⃒ ⃒ ⃒ ⃒ ⃒ ⃒ ⃒ ⃒ potential physical modes is fixed when k and N are determined. Based on
⃒ ⃒ ⃒ ⃒
Mλ = 2*log⃒1 − λni λnj ⃒ + log⃒1 − λ2i ⃒ + log⃒1 − λ2j ⃒ − 2*log⃒1 − λi λj ⃒ this pattern the threshold can be determined. Firstly the MMOC value of
⃒ ⃒ ⃒ ⃒ each mode candidate with its sibling mode having the smallest relative
− log⃒1 − λ2n ⃒ − log⃒⃒1 − λ2n ⃒⃒ (6)
i j eigenvalue difference from consecutive system order is calculated. Then
the MMOC value of the SP th mode in descending mode sequence is
Since N is set bigger than 100, λni and λi λj would be much bigger than
selected as the threshold. Finally the modes with MMOC value smaller
1 if λi and λj have big values. To this end, Mλ can be simplified as. than the threshold is considered spurious and eliminated. The only input
⃒
⃒
⃒
⃒ ⃒ ⃒ ⃒ ⃒
⃒ ⃒ ⃒ ⃒ ⃒ ⃒ ⃒ ⃒
⃒ − log⃒⃒λ2n ⃒⃒ = 0 for the calculation of the threshold is the number of identifiable physical
Mλ = 2*log⃒λni λnj ⃒ + log⃒λ2i ⃒ + log⃒λ2j ⃒ − 2*log⃒λi λj ⃒ − log⃒λ2n
i j
modes k within a determined frequency band, and it can be determined
(7) based on spectral analysis or from finite element analysis. The k is fixed
and therefore it does not need to be carefully tuned, and it only needs to
Equation (7) means MOC would be the same as MAC for models with
be set once in the beginning of the identification. The k is recommended
big eigenvalues (structures with high rigidity). For models with eigen­
to be set 1 or 2 bigger than the realistic one, which would avoid the
values smaller than 1, the λni and λi λj would go to 0, and then Mλ can be
wrong elimination of potential physical modes.
simplified as.

Mλ = 2*log|1| + log|1| + log|1| − 2*log|1| − log|1| − log|1| = 0 (8)

2.3. Automated mode separation based on improved hierarchical
Equation (15) means MOC would also be the same as MAC for models
clustering method
with relatively small eigenvalues (structures with high flexibility). The
analysis indicates that, for structures with high flexibility or rigidity
The goal of this section is to automatically separate the retained
such as long span cable structure bridges and short span bridges, MOC
probably physical modes in the cleared stabilization diagram into
would be the same as MAC. Under this circumstance, for modes having
several groups. In this study, the hierarchical clustering method is uti­
spatial aliasing, both indices would lose ability to distinguish them,
lized to finish the work. The hierarchical clustering method can be
leading to a failure of automatic modal identification. To overcome the
summarized in three steps:
limitation of MOC, the MMOC is proposed. The main strategy is to
normalize the corresponding two eigenvalues to 1 to enhance the
(1) Treat each single data as an initial cluster.
importance of eigenvalues in MOC. The MMOC is calculated as.
(2) Combine the nearest two clusters into a new one, where the
⃒ H ⃒( )2
⃒φ φj ⃒ 1 − (λM )n (λM )n (1 − (λM )2 )(1 − (λM )2 ) ‘nearest’ is estimated using a defined similarity measure.
MMOC =
i
⃒ ⃒(
i j i j
(9) (3) Repeat steps (1) and (2) until the value of the similarity measure
|φHi φ i |*⃒ φ H
j φj
⃒ 1 − λ M M
i jλ )*(1 − (λ M 2n
i ) )(1 − (λ M 2n
j ) ) of the two clusters exceed a threshold.

where λM
i and λj are normalized eigenvalues and calculated as.
M The key point to automate the process is to automatically determine
the threshold. In this study, the similarity between modes is estimated
λM
i = 2*λi /(λi + λj ) based on.
( )
λM (10) di,j = d λi , λj + 1 − MMOC(vi , vj ) (13)
j = 2*λj /(λi + λj )

The MMOC overcomes the limitation of MAC and MOC in dis­ and the threshold is then calculated as.
tinguishing modes. The eigenvalue is introduced in MMOC in estimation
d = μ + 2σ (14)
of similarity of mode shapes. For similar modes, MMOC would be close
to 1, while for dissimilar modes MMOC would be close to 0. MMOC is
where μ and σ denotes the mean value and standard deviation of dBi,j ,
suitable for modes with spatial aliasing and structures with high flexi­
bility or rigidity. which is calculated as.
( )
B
di,j = d λRi , λj + 1 − MMOC(vRi , vj ) (15)
2.2. Stabilization diagram clearance using a new method
( )
where d λRi , λj denotes the relative difference of eigenvalues between
The physical modes stabilize with system order and form the vertical
the ith reference mode and the nearest modes from all the other system
alignment in the stabilization diagram, while the spurious modes scatter
orders and is calculated as.
in the stabilization diagram. Clearing the stabilization diagram aims to
remove the scattered spurious modes and retain the physical ones. The ( ) |λRi − λj |
d λRi , λj = ⃒ ⃒ (16)
hard validation criteria [10,12] are firstly utilized to eliminate the max(⃒λRi ⃒, |λj |)
certainly spurious modes, and then most of the other spurious modes are
eliminated based on a MMOC threshold automatically calculated using where λRi denotes the eigenvalue of the reference mode and λj denotes
the proposed method. the eigenvalue of the current mode. The reference modes are selected
For a structure, the number of identifiable modes within a specific based on two steps: (1) Count the number of modes for each system
frequency band is certain, assuming k. In modal identification using SSI, order in the cleared stabilization diagram, assuming q is the number that
if the maximum system order is set as N, the number of the computed occurs the most; (2) Select the modes of the smallest model order with q
mode candidates can be precisely calculated using a sum of arithmetic modes as the reference modes. Selecting the reference modes aims to
sequence as. build a baseline for estimating the discreteness between the modes from
1
(
N
) all system orders, which aims to avoid the cluster splitting phenomenon
SA = * 1 + *N/2 (11) caused due to the rather small clustering threshold when the spurious
2 2
modes are eliminated completely.

4
M. He et al. Engineering Structures 260 (2022) 114223

3. Proposed automated modal tracking

The proposed automatic modal tracking method consists of two

important procedures, i.e., updating the baseline modes and linking the
identified modes in current analysis to those from the previous ones.
Updating the baseline modes means replacing the baseline modes in
each tracking process using the modes identified in the current analysis.
Linking the modes aims to connect each order of mode in current
analysis to those of the previous ones based on the similarity. These two
procedures are synchronously conducted, and the process is explained in
Fig. 3. Original vibration data.
detail as follows:
(1) Conduct the automated modal identification to obtain the first set
of modal parameter and set them as the first set of reference modes. with using MMOC as the similarity measure, the closely spaced modes
Assuming the identified mode set is Mr = [ Mr1 Mr2 ⋯ Mrn ], where with spatial aliasing can be successfully distinguished and successfully
Mrn is a collection of frequency, damping ratio and mode shape etc. and tracked.
is sorted in ascending order based on the frequency values.
(2) Conduct another automated modal identification to obtain 4. Validation examples
another set of modal parameters. Assume the identified mode set is
[
Mc = Mc1 Mc2 ⋯ Mck .
] The proposed method is applied to two bridges to validate the
feasibility and novelty. Modal identification and tracking for each bridge
(3) Establish the similarity matrix as.
⎡ ⎤ is conducted under situations with many and very few sensors deployed.
s11 ⋯ s1j ⋯ s1n The spatial aliasing phenomenon is considered for both bridges. The
⎢ ⋮
⎢ ⋮ ⋮ ⋮ ⋮ ⎥⎥ extreme situation, which is closely spaced modes with severe spatial
S=⎢ ⎢ si1 ⋯ sij ⋯ sin ⎥
⎥ (17) aliasing, is considered in both case studies to validate the feasibility and
⎣ ⋮ ⋮ ⎦
⋮ ⋮ ⋮ novelty in identifying the closely spaced modes when very few sensors
sk1 ⋯ skj ⋯ skn
are deployed. The identification results using the method in [10] are
where sij denotes the MMOC computed based on Equation (9) be­ provided as comparisons. The method is utilized for comparison because
tween the ith identified mode in current analysis and the jth mode in the the method is fully automated and wholly or partially used in many
reference mode set. studies [11,12,22].
(4) Find the minimum value sij in similarity matrix and link the ith
identified mode in current analysis with the jth reference mode. 4.1. Case 1: The fourth Nanjing Yangtze River bridge
(5) Update the similarity matrix by replacing all the values in the ith
row and the jth column with a big value greater than 1, assuming 10, as. The Fourth Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge (FNYRB) is a double tower
⎡ ⎤ three span suspension bridge with a main span of 1418 m and two
s11 ⋯ 10 ⋯ s1n
⎢ ⋮ different side spans of 576.2 and 481.8 m, respectively. A structural
⋮ ⋮ ⋮ ⋮ ⎥
⎢ ⎥ health monitoring system was installed on the bridge in 2012 after the
Su = ⎢ 10 ⋯ 10 ⋯ 10 ⎥ (18)
⎢
⎣ ⋮ ⋮ ⋮ ⋮
⎥
⋮ ⎦ construction. Twenty six Piezoelectric model 991B uniaxial accelerom­
sk1 ⋯ 10 ⋯ skn eters were installed on the main girder to monitor the vertical vibration
response, as shown in Fig. 2. The Piezoelectric accelerometer model
(6) Repeat steps (4) and (5) until all the values in the similarity 991B is a ultra-low frequency acceleration sensor with a measurement
matrix are updated. range of 0–100 mg and frequency resolution of 5 × 10-4 mg and widely
(7) The last step is to update the reference modes. Each reference used in bridge monitoring and experiment. The sensors are managed
mode is updated using the linked identified one in current analysis. For using National Instruments cRIO-9036 controller. The accelerometers
situation with k < n, which denotes some physical modes are not iden­ are symmetrically installed at 13 longitudinal positions, with each po­
tified in current analysis, only the reference modes linked with the sition installed two sensors in the upstream and downstream of the
newly identified ones are updated and those not linked stay the same. girder. The bridge is under environmental excitations of winds and ve­
Specially for situation with k > n, it means that the reference modes do hicles. The utilized data for analysis is from the one hour monitoring
not cover all the physical modes. Under this circumstance, some of the data at midnight, during which time period the vehicle is rare and the
modes in current analysis would not be linked to any one of the refer­ bridge is in a wind environment with a mean wind speed of 3.6 m/s.
ence modes, and all the modes in current analysis would be set as the Fig. 3 shows the 5 min of original vibration data, it can be seen that
new reference modes. vibration is within relatively stable range. The dynamic vibration re­
The proposed automated modal tracking method requires no manual sponses are collected at a sampling rate of 50 Hz. The finite element
intervention. No manually defined thresholds are required, and the results show 7 vertical modes under 0.3 Hz, and therefore the moni­
reference modes either do not need to be manually defined. Besides, toring data are filtered using a low-pass filter with a cut off frequency of

Fig. 2. Layout of sensors.

5
M. He et al.
Fig. 4. Comparison of cleared stabilization diagrams: all sensors utilized.
0.3 Hz.
The bridge is with high flexibility, and the eigenvalues from SSI
method are small and therefore the MOC can be precisely calculated
based on Equation (4). Modal identification is firstly conducted based on
data from all sensors, and then situations with spatial aliasing of mode
shape using monitoring data from very few sensors are also analyzed to
validate the feasibility of the proposed method.
4.1.1. Automated modal identification and tracking with all sensors
deployed
Fig. 4 shows the initially established stabilization diagram using the
data from all the 26 sensors, in which one point represent one computed
mode candidate from SSI method. The mode candidates forming the
vertical alignments suggest the physical modes that need to be extracted,
and the scattered points represent the spurious mode candidates that
need to be removed. The hard validation criteria are firstly applied to
remove the certainly spurious modes. Then the retained spurious modes
are removed using the proposed method with k set as 8, the automated
method [10] and the manually defined static threshold method [21]
with MPD threshold set as 0.3. Fig. 4 (b) to (d) show the cleared stabi­
lization diagrams. It can be seen that the proposed method yields the
best results than the other two methods do, and almost all the scattered
spurious modes are removed. Compared with Fig. 4 (b), many scattered
spurious modes are retained when using the referenced two methods,
Fig. 5. Clustering results: all sensors deployed.
6
Engineering Structures 260 (2022) 114223
which indicates the novelty of the proposed method.
Fig. 5 shows the automated identification results based on the
cleared stabilization diagram (Fig. 4 a) using the reference method [10]
and the proposed method, in which one vertical alignment represent one
physical mode. It can be seen that both methods produce the same
identification results, and seven physical modes are identified. Fig. 6
shows the identified seven mode shapes, where the black nodes in the
girder represent the supporting points and the red nodes represent the
locations where the sensors are deployed. Table 1 presents the identified
frequencies using both methods, and both methods produce almost the
same identification results. The identification results indicate that the
proposed method has the ability of automatically identifying the modal
parameters when many sensors are deployed for bridge with high
flexibility.
Fig. 7 shows the MAC, MOC and MMOC values between the seven
modes. It can be seen that all the off-diagonal elements in three figures
are all close to 0, indicating that all the three indicators can distinguish
the different modes when many sensors are deployed. Slightly smaller
values can be found in MOC and MMOC between the 1st and the 2nd, the
4th and the 5th and the 6th and the 7th modes compared with MAC, and
these results indicate that MOC and MMOC have better ability to
distinguish the different modes. Among all the three figures, the MMOC
shows the best results. Even though these differences can be neglected, it
still indicates the advantage of MMOC in distinguishing the different
M. He et al.
Fig. 6. Identified mode shapes: all sensors deployed, (a)-(g): 1st mode – 7th mode.
Table 1
Identified modal frequencies using both method (unit: Hz).
Mode order 1 2 3 4
Reference method 0.1021 0.1133 0.1440
Proposed method 0.1021 0.1133 0.1440
modes compared with the other two indices.
Two weeks of monitoring data are continuously analyzed to identify
the modal parameters. Twenty minutes of data are utilized in one modal
identification analysis, and continuous identification is conducted with
a time step of 5 min. The modes are tracked using the traditional method
and the proposed method, and the thresholds of MAC and df are set as
0.8 and 0.1 respectively for the traditional method. The results indicate
that the proposed method and the traditional method yield the same
modal tracking results. Considering no difference would be found in the
tracking results, the tracking results are not provided. However, it still
needs to be mentioned that when the MAC threshold is set bigger and the
df smaller, the traditional method would fail to track some of the modes
for every order of mode. This is the limitation of the traditional tracking
method. The proposed method requires no manually tuned thresholds
and can produce the right and stable modal tracking results, which
proves the feasibility of the proposed method in modal tracking for
situation with many sensors deployed.
4.1.2. Automated modal identification and tracking with very few sensors
deployed
The automated modal identification and tracking under situation
with very few sensors deployed are also conducted. Three situations
with data from sensors 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, sensors 4, 7, 10 and sensors 2, 7, 12
are all analyzed. Due to the space limitation, only the results of the
extreme situation with spatial aliasing when data from sensors 2, 7 and
12 are utilized are presented.
Fig. 8 presents the initial stabilization diagram and the cleared ones
using the proposed method and the other two reference methods. It can
be seen that the proposed method still yields the best spurious mode
elimination results, and most of the scattered spurious modes are elim­
inated, indicating the novelty of the proposed method in spurious mode
7
Engineering Structures 260 (2022) 114223
5 6 7
0.1811 0.1912 0.2223 0.2518
0.1811 0.1912 0.2226 0.2518
elimination under situation in which very few sensors are deployed and
spatial aliasing occurs. The other two reference methods yield worse
elimination results because MAC and MPD both lose ability in dis­
tinguishing different modes with spatial aliasing.
Fig. 9 shows the clustering results using the reference method and
the proposed method. It can be seen that the reference method groups
the 3rd and the 4th modes together because the MAC fails to distinguish
these two modes when spatial aliasing occurs. Different with the refer­
ence method, the proposed method successfully distinguishes the 3rd
and the 4th modes, which proves the novelty of the proposed method in
automated modal identification for modes having spatial aliasing when
very few sensors are deployed. Table 2 presents the identified modal
frequencies using both methods. Some frequencies identified using the
reference method are bigger than those from the proposed method
because it introduces obvious outliers in the corresponding mode clus­
ter, as shown in the highlight zone in Fig. 9 (a).
Fig. 10 presents the MAC, MOC and MMOC values between different
modes. For different two modes, the off-diagonal element values should
be close to 0 if the index can successfully distinguish them. It can be seen
that the MAC fails to distinguish the 3rd and the 4th modes because the
MAC value between the 3rd and the 4th modes are close to 1, which
indicates the failure of MAC in distinguishing modes with spatial alias­
ing in situation with very few sensors deployed. The MOC value also fails
to distinguish the 3rd and the 4th modes. Since the eigenvalues of the
suspension bridge are small, the MOC values are precisely computed
based on Equation (4). The reason it fails to distinguish the two modes is
because the corresponding two eigenvalues are both small than 0. Under
this circumstance, the λni and λi λj would be close to 0, which makes the
Mλ close to 0 and MOC close to MAC. Compared with MAC and MOC,
MMOC successfully distinguishes all the six modes because all the off-
diagonal elements are close to 0, indicating the novelty of the
M. He et al. Engineering Structures 260 (2022) 114223

Fig. 7. Comparison of index values: all sensors utilized.

Fig. 8. Comparison of cleared stabilization diagrams: very few sensors utilized.

8
M. He et al. Engineering Structures 260 (2022) 114223

Fig. 9. Clustering results: very few sensors utilized.

together using the traditional method, while the proposed method suc­
Table 2
cessfully distinguishes them, as shown in Fig. 11. Fig. 12 presents the
Identified modal frequencies using both method (unit: Hz).
calculated MAC, MOC and MMOC values for the 5th tracked modes,
Mode order 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 where the values are computed between the first mode and the other
Reference / 0.1132 0.1442 Grouped together 0.2222 0.2517 modes in the group. It can be seen that the MAC and MOC values are all
method close to 1, while some of the MMOC values are close to 0. The MMOC
Proposed / 0.1121 0.1439 0.1819 0.1907 0.2228 0.2515 values reveal the fact that different modes are grouped together in this
method
mode cluster, which indicates the ability of MMOC in distinguishing
different modes with spatial aliasing when very few sensors are
proposed MMOC in distinguishing modes with spatial aliasing under deployed. For the modes tracked using the proposed method, all the
situation in which only a few sensors are deployed. three index values are close to 1, indicating the proposed modal tracking
The continuously identified modal parameters under this sensor method tracked the same similar modes. It is worth mentioning that the
deployment situation are tracked using the proposed method and the wrong tracking results are still obtained using the traditional method
traditional method, and the MAC and df thresholds are set as 0.8 and 0.1 when the MAC and df thresholds are set as 0.9 and 0.05 for stricter
respectively for traditional method. The modes corresponding to the 4th distinguishing. The results reveal that setting stricter thresholds would
physical mode (f = 0.18) and the 5th physical mode (f = 0.19) are linked not lead to better tracking results. Besides, setting stricter thresholds

Fig. 10. Comparison of index values: very few sensors utilized.

9
M. He et al.
Fig. 11. Comparison of modal tracking result of the 5th frequency.
causes mode missing for other orders of modes, and this is the dilemma
of the traditional modal tracking method.
4.2. Case 2: The Dowling Hall footbridge
The Dowling Hall Footbridge [32] is a footbridge located in the
Medford, MA, Tufts University, connecting the main campus and the
student service offices. The bridge is a two-span continuous steel frame
bridge with a length of 44 m and width of 3.7 m, as shown in Fig. 13. A
structural health monitoring system was installed in the bridge in 2010.
Eight PCB Piezoelectric model 393B04 uniaxial accelerometers were
permanently mounted to the underside of the bridge to monitor the
vertical vibration. A National Instruments cRIO-9074 integrated
controller is used as the core component of the data acquisition system
[33]. The bridge is excited by people and wind. A 5-minute data sample
is recorded at the top of each hour, and 5-minute sample vibration
response is also recorded when one-second root mean square value of
each acceleration channel exceed 0.03 g. Fig. 14 shows the 5 min of
Fig. 12. Comparison of index values for the 6th modes tracked using different method.
Fig. 13. Dowling Hall Footbridge [32].
10
Engineering Structures 260 (2022) 114223
Fig. 14. Original vibration data.
vibration data. It can be seen that the vibration is not stable. When there
is people walking on the bridge the large amplitude vibration is trig­
gered, and when there is no people on the bridge the vibration of the
bridge is with very small amplitude. The monitoring data are provided
for benchmark study for modal identification. The bridge has high ri­
gidity and very closely spaced modes, which provides the foundation for
validation of the proposed method in identifying the closely spaced
modes. The first six frequencies are only provided for comparisons, and
therefore the data are processed with a low-pass filter with the cutoff
frequency set as 17 Hz.
4.2.1. Automated modal identification and tracking with all sensors
deployed
Fig. 15 (a) shows the initial stabilization diagram when the data from
all the 8 sensors are utilized for mode candidates calculation. Fig. 15 (b)
to (d) show the cleared stabilization diagrams using the proposed
method with k set as 7, the automated clustering method and the
manually defined static threshold method with MPD set as 0.3. It can be
seen that the proposed method still produces the best results and
removes almost all the scattered spurious modes, indicating the novelty
of the proposed method in spurious modes elimination for structure with
high rigidity. Fig. 16 shows the automated modal identification results
M. He et al. Engineering Structures 260 (2022) 114223

Fig. 15. Comparison of cleared stabilization diagrams: all sensors deployed.

Fig. 16. Clustering results: all sensors utilized.

Fig. 17. Identified mode shapes when all sensors utilized: (a)-(f): 1st mode – 6th mode.

11
M. He et al.
Table 3
Identified modal frequencies using both method (unit: Hz).
Mode order 1 2 3 4 5 6
Reference method 4.73 6.04 7.25 9.04 13.26 13.71
Proposed method 4.74 6.04 7.25 9.04 13.26 13.71
using the reference method and the proposed method, in which one
vertical line represents one physical mode. It can be seen that both
methods produce the same identification results. Fig. 17 shows the
identified mode shapes for the six modes, where the black points
represent the supporting points and the red points represent the sensor
locations. Besides, it can be seen that the 3rd and the 4th modes are
torsion modes, and the identification result indicates the ability of the
proposed index and method in automatic modal identification of torsion
mode. Table 3 presents the identified modal frequencies using both
methods, and both methods yield almost the same results, which prove
the ability of the proposed model in automated modal identification for
structure with high rigidity.
Fig. 18 shows the MAC, MOC and MMOC values for all the six
identified mode shapes. The MOC is calculated based on Equation (5) to
avoid the failure of calculation caused due to the big eigenvalue. It can
be seen that MOC values are almost the same as those of MAC, and some
values between different modes are relatively big, which reveals the fact
that MAC and MOC have limitation to distinguish the closely spaced
modes even though when many sensors are deployed. Compared with
MAC and MOC, MMOC presents the best results in distinguishing
different modes, and the off-diagonal elements are close to 0, indicating
the better ability of MMOC than MAC and MOC in distinguishing
Fig. 18. Comparison of index values: all sensors utilized.
12
Engineering Structures 260 (2022) 114223
different modes.
Two weeks of monitoring data are continuously analyzed to identify
the modal parameters. The MAC and df thresholds are still set as 0.8 and
0.1 for modal tracking in the traditional modal tracking method. The
traditional tracking method and the proposed method produce the same
tracking results, which indicate the ability of the proposed model in
automatic modal tracking when many sensors are deployed for structure
with high rigidity. Since no difference would be found in both tracking
results, they are not presented for space saving. However, it is still needs
to be mentioned that the same mode missing phenomenon would
happen when the MAC and df thresholds are set stricter for the tradi­
tional modal tracking method.
4.2.2. Automated modal identification and tracking with a few sensors
deployed
It can be seen from Fig. 17 that the third and the fourth modes are
torsional modes. If only one side of sensors, such as sensors 1, 2, 3 and 4,
are utilized, the torsional mode would show as flexion mode in identi­
fication, and spatial aliasing would also happen between the first and
third and the second and fourth modes because they would have the
same mode shapes respectively. Besides, when only sensors 1, 2, 3 and 4
are utilized, the first four modes would have the same mode shape for
the long span (corresponding to sensors 1, 2 and 3), which would also
cause much difficulty in distinguishing different modes in automatic
identification. To investigate the ability of the proposed method in
dealing with such a situation in automatic modal identification, only
sensors 1, 2, 3 and 4 are utilized for automatic modal identification.
Fig. 19 shows the initially established stabilization diagram and the
cleared ones using the proposed method and the reference methods. It
M. He et al. Engineering Structures 260 (2022) 114223

Fig. 19. Comparison of cleared stabilization diagrams: one side of sensors deployed.

Fig. 20. Clustering results: one side of sensors deployed.

Fig. 21. Identified mode shapes: one side of sensors deployed, (a)-(f): 1st mode – 6th mode.

13
M. He et al.
can be seen that the proposed method yields the best cleared stabiliza­
tion diagram and most of the spurious modes are eliminated, which
indicates the novelty of the proposed method in spurious mode elimi­
nation under such a sensor deployment situation. The two reference
methods fail to remove many spurious modes because the mode shape
relevant indices do not work efficiently in distinguishing physical and
spurious modes.
Fig. 20 shows the clustering results using the reference method and
the proposed method. It can be seen that the proposed method yields the
correct identification results and distinguish all the physical modes. The
reference method also distinguishes all the different modes, but it in­
troduces many outliers in the second mode cluster. The identification
results indicate that the proposed method can successfully distinguish
the torsional modes from flexion mode even when they have spatial
aliasing under such a sensor deployment situation. Fig. 21 shows the
identified mode shapes. Just as analysed earlier that the first and third
and the second and fourth modes have the same mode shapes, and all the
first four modes have the same mode shape for the longer span.
Fig. 22 shows MAC, MOC and the proposed MMOC values between
different modes. It can be seen that the MAC and MOC values between
the first and third and the second and fourth modes are close to 1, which
means MAC and MOC both fail to distinguish these modes. Besides, the
MAC and MOC values between the first four modes are also very big, and
this is because these four modes have the same mode shape for the
longer span of the bridge. Different with MAC and MOC, the proposed
MMOC successfully distinguish all the modes, and all the off-diagonal
elements are close to 0, which indicates the novelty of the proposed
MMOC in discriminating torsional and flexion modes even when spatial
aliasing occurs.
The situation with sensors 1, 2, 3 and 4 validates the ability and
Fig. 22. Comparison of index values: all sensors utilized.
14
Engineering Structures 260 (2022) 114223
novelty of the proposed index and method in distinguishing the torsional
modes having spatial aliasing phenomenon. To further investigate the
ability of the proposed index and method in distinguishing closely
spaced modes with spatial aliasing, an extreme situation in which only
the data from sensors 1 and 5 are utilized for automatic modal identi­
fication and tracking. Fig. 23 shows the initially established stabilization
diagram and the cleared ones using the proposed method and the
reference methods. It can be seen that even under such a sever situation
the proposed method still yields the best results than the other two
methods do, and almost all the scattered spurious modes are eliminated,
indicating the novelty of the proposed method in spurious modes
elimination even when very few sensors are deployed.
Fig. 24 shows the clustering results using the reference method and
the proposed method. It can be seen that the reference method fails to
distinguish the 5th and the 6th modes, and the corresponding modes are
grouped together. Besides that, some obvious outliers are included in the
second cluster, and it is because of the limitation of MAC in dis­
tinguishing different modes when very few sensors are deployed.
Different with the reference method, the proposed method successfully
separates the 5th and the 6th modes under such an extreme situation.
Fig. 25 shows the identified mode shapes for all the six modes. It can be
seen that the spatial aliasing happens for the 1st, the 2nd, the 5th and the
6th and the 3rd and the 4th modes because they have the same mode
shapes. The 3rd and the 4th modes are torsion modes. Table 4 presents
the modal frequencies identified using the proposed method and the
reference method, and the proposed method yields the right identifi­
cation results for both torsion modes and closely spaced modes with
spatial aliasing, indicating the ability of the proposed method in auto­
mated modal identification for torsion modes and closely spaced modes
with spatial aliasing even when very few sensors are deployed.
M. He et al. Engineering Structures 260 (2022) 114223

Fig. 23. Comparison of cleared stabilization diagrams: very few sensors deployed.

Fig. 24. Clustering results: very few sensors deployed.

Fig. 25. Identified mode shapes: very few sensors deployed: (a)-(f): 1st mode – 6th mode.

15
M. He et al. Engineering Structures 260 (2022) 114223

Table 4
Identified modal frequencies using both method (unit: Hz).
Mode order 1 2 3 4 5 6

Reference method 4.73 6.04 7.26 9.02 Grouped together

Proposed method 4.73 6.06 7.26 9.02 13.22 13.72

Fig. 26 shows the MAC, MOC and MMOC values between different
modes. The MOC is calculated using the simplified Equation (14)
because the eigenvalues are too big and λni exceeds the maximum value
that the double-precision data can represent. Just as discussed earlier
the 1st, the 2nd, the 3rd and the 4th and the 5th and the 6th modes have
spatial aliasing, which causes the MAC and MOC values between these
modes close to 1, indicating the failure of MAC and MOC in dis­
tinguishing these modes. In contrast with MAC and MOC, the desired Fig. 27. Comparison of modal tracking result of the 6th frequency.
results can be observed in MMOC. The off-diagonal elements of MMOC
values are close to 0, which indicates the ability of MMOC in dis­ The identified modes under such sensor deployment situation are
tinguishing different modes even when spatial aliasing occurs for these tracked using both methods, and the MAC and df thresholds are still set
modes. It is worth mentioning that the 3rd and the 4th modes are torsion as 0.8 and 0.1 respectively for the traditional method. Fig. 27 presents
modes and the 5th and the 6th modes are closely spaced modes with the 6th modes tracked using both methods. It can be seen that the
spatial aliasing, and these four modes are successfully distinguished traditional method links the 5th and the 6th modes together, while the
using the proposed method, which proves the novelty of the proposed proposed method successfully distinguishes them. Fig. 28 presents the
method in distinguishing closely spaced modes even with severe spatial MAC, MOC and MMOC values for the tracked 6th modes using both
aliasing. methods. For the modes tracked using the traditional method, the MAC

Fig. 26. Comparison of index values: very few sensors utilized.

16
M. He et al.
Fig. 28. Comparison of index values for the 6th modes tracked using different method.
and MOC values are close to 1 while some of the MMOC values are close
to 0, which indicates that MAC and MOC both fail in modal tracking
when spatial aliasing occurs in situation in which very few sensors are
deployed. Different with the traditional method, all the values for the
modes tracked using the proposed method are close to 1, and the results
indicate that the proposed method tracks the right modes. The tracking
results prove the ability of the proposed method in modal tracking even
when spatial aliasing occurs for torsion and closely spaced modes in
situation with very few sensors deployed.
5. Conclusions
In this paper, a unified fully automated modal identification and
tracking method is proposed. The MMOC index is proposed to distin­
guish the different modes. New spurious mode elimination method and
automated modal identification and tracking method are proposed to
fulfill the fully automated modal identification and tracking. Validation
examples of a long span suspension bridge and a short span bridge with
closely spaced modes under different sensor deployment situations are
conducted to prove the feasibility and novelty, and the conclusions can
be drawn:
(1) The proposed MMOC shows novelty in distinguishing different
modes than MAC, and it can successfully distinguish different
modes no matter whether the mode shape is wholly identified or
not. It also can distinguish the closely spaced modes with severe
spatial aliasing when very few sensors are deployed in a
structure.
(2) The proposed spurious mode elimination method can yield
desired spurious mode elimination results for situations with
many or very few sensors deployed. It requires the number of the
theoretically identifiable modes as the only input, yet the input
does not need to be carefully tuned and only needs to be set once
at the beginning of the analysis.
(3) The proposed modal identification and tracking method requires
no manually tuned thresholds or carefully defined reference
modes, and can be used for structures with many or very few
sensors deployed, for closely spaced modes with spatial aliasing
and for structures with high flexibility or rigidity. It avoids the
manual intervention and overcomes the instability of traditional
method when different thresholds are set in modal tracking.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Min He: Investigation, Conceptualization, Methodology, Software,
Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing, Formal analysis.
Peng Liang: Conceptualization, Supervision, Funding acquisition, Re­
sources. Yang Zhang: Investigation, Software, Validation. Fan Yang:
Investigation, Validation. Jiu-xian Liu: Software.
17
Engineering Structures 260 (2022) 114223
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgement
This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China
(Grant numbers: 2019YFB1600702), the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (Grant number: 51878059). The first author would
also thank the financial support from the China Scholarship Council.
References
[1] Cross EJ, Koo KY, Brownjohn J, Worden K. Long-term monitoring and data analysis
of the Tamar Bridge. Mech Syst Signal Process 2013;3516–34.
[2] Magalhaes F, Cunha A, Caetano E. Vibration based structural health monitoring of
an arch bridge: From automated OMA to damage detection. Mech Syst Signal
Process 2012:28212–28.
[3] Ubertini F, Gentile C, Materazzi AL. Automated modal identification in operational
conditions and its application to bridges. Eng Struct 2013:46264–78.
[4] Chen WH, Lu ZR, Lin W, Chen SH, Ni YQ, Xia Y, et al. Theoretical and experimental
modal analysis of the Guangzhou New TV Tower. Eng Struct 2011:333628–46.
[5] Gentile C, Ruccolo A, Canali F. Continuous monitoring of the Milan Cathedral:
dynamic characteristics and vibration-based SHM. J Civ Struct Health Monit 2019:
9671–88.
[6] Cheng L, Tong F, Yang J, Zheng D. Online Modal Identification of Concrete Dams
Using the Subspace Tracking-Based Method. Shock Vib 2019;2019.
[7] Pereira S, Reynders E, Magalhes F, Cunha L, Gomes JP. The role of modal
parameters uncertainty estimation in automated modal identification, modal
tracking and data normalization. Eng Struct 2020:224111208.
[8] Hu W, Thoens S, Rohrmann RG, Said S, Ruecker W. Vibration-based structural
health monitoring of a wind turbine system Part II: Environmental/operational
effects on dynamic properties. Eng Struct 2015:89273–90.
[9] Oliveira G, Magalhaes F, Cunha A, Caetano E. Continuous dynamic monitoring of
an onshore wind turbine. Eng Struct 2018:16422–39.
[10] Reynders E, Houbrechts J, Roeck GD. Fully automated (operational) modal
analysis. Mech Syst Signal Process 2012:29228–50.
[11] Sun M, Alamdari MM, Kalhori H. Automated Operational Modal Analysis of a
Cable-Stayed Bridge. J Bridge Eng 2017;22.
[12] He M, Liang P, Li J, Zhang Y, Liu Y. Fully automated precise operational modal
identification. Eng Struct 2021:234111988.
[13] Vanlanduit S, Verboven P, Guillaume P, Schoukens J. An automatic frequency
domain modal parameter estimation algorithm. J Sound Vib 2003:265647–61.
[14] Brincker R, Zhang L, Andersen P. Modal Identification from Ambient Responses
using Frequency Domain Decomposition. Proceedings of SPIE - The International
Society for Optical Engineering. 2000.
[15] Rainieri C, Fabbrocino G. Automated output-only dynamic identification of civil
engineering structures. Mech Syst Signal Process 2010:24678–95.
[16] Mao J, Wang H, Fu Y, Spencer BF. Automated Modal Identification Using Principal
Component and Cluster Analysis: Application to A Long-Span Cable-Stayed Bridge.
Struct Control Health Monit 2019:e2430.
[17] Yang X, Yi T, Qu C, Li H, Liu H. Automated Eigensystem Realization Algorithm for
Operational Modal Identification of Bridge Structures. J Aerospace Eng 2019:
324018141–8.
[18] Altunışık AC, Okur FY, Genç AF, Günaydın M, Adanur S. Automated Model
Updating of Historical Masonry Structures based on Ambient Vibration
Measurements. J Perform Constr Fac 2018:11–2.
M. He et al.
[19] Sunca F, Ergün M, Altuniik AC, Günaydin M, Okur FY. Modal identification and
fatigue behavior of Eynel steel arch highway bridge with calibrated models. J Civ
Struct Health Monit 2021:51337–54.
[20] Overschee PV, Moor BD. Subspace Identification for Linear Systems. US: Springer;
1996.
[21] Fan G, Li J, Hao H. Improved automated operational modal identification of
structures based on clustering. Struct Control Health Monit 2019.
[22] Neu E, Janser F, Khatibi AA, Orifici AC. Fully Automated Operational Modal
Analysis using multi-stage clustering. Mech Syst Signal Process 2017:84308–23.
[23] Zini G, Betti M, Bartoli G. A quality-based automated procedure for operational
modal analysis. Mech Syst Signal Process 2022:1108173.
[24] Cabboi A, Magalhaes F, Gentile C, Cunha A. Automated modal identification and
tracking: Application to an iron arch bridge. Struct Control Health Monit 2017:24.
[25] Yaghoubi V, Vakilzadeh MK, Abrahamsson T. Automated Modal Parameter
Estimation Using Correlation Analysis and Bootstrap Sampling. Mech Syst Signal
Process 2017:2289–310.
18
Engineering Structures 260 (2022) 114223
[26] Yaghoubi V, Abrahamsson T. The Modal Observability Correlation as a Modal
Correlation Metric. Top Modal Analysis 2014:7487–94.
[27] Gentile C, Ruccolo A, Saisi A. Continuous Dynamic Monitoring to Enhance the
Knowledge of a Historic Bell-Tower. Int J Archit Herit 2019:13992–21004.
[28] Zhou Y, Sun L. Effects of environmental and operational actions on the modal
frequency variations of a sea-crossing bridge: A periodicity perspective. Mech Syst
Signal Process 2019:131505–23.
[29] González WM, Boroschek RL, Bilbao JA. Temperature measurement assisted modal
tracking of an instrumented building. Eng Struct 2021;233.
[30] Mao JX, Wang H, Spenser B. Gaussian mixture model for automated tracking of
modal parameters of long-span bridge. Smart Struct Syst 2019:2243–56.
[31] Yang X, Yi T, Qu C, Li H, Liu H. Continuous tracking of bridge modal parameters
based on subspace correlations. Struct Control Health Monit 2020.
[32] Moser P, Moaveni B. Environmental effects on the identifed natural frequencies of
the Dowling Hall Footbridge. Mech Syst Signal Process 2011:72336–57.
[33] Moser P, Moaveni B. Design and deployment of a continuous monitoring system for
the Dowling Hall Footbridge. Exp Tech 2013;37(1):15–26.