Intelligent civil engineering monitoring is a type of building that integrates various advanced technologies, and sensors are one of its key components. Sensors convert physical quantities into electrical signals for real-time monitoring and evaluation of structures. In practical applications, sensors must meet the requirements of high precision, high sensitivity, high reliability, and long lifespan, and must be selected and deployed according to the actual characteristics and requirements of the structure. This article is based on the above issues and explores the optimization of sensor positions in civil engineering intelligent structures using regularization technology, with the aim of deploying monitoring sensors through intelligent digital technology and improving the monitoring effect of buildings. The experimental results show that the sensor position optimization based on regularization technique L1 takes less time than PSO (Particle Swarm Optimization) algorithm and GA (Genetic Algorithm) algorithm. The maximum optimization time for regularization technology is 24.42 s, which is much lower than the running time of other algorithms.