• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.1363-1372
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• 2015

Smart structures and intelligent systems play pivotal roles in numerous areas of applied sciences ranging from civil engineering to computer and communications systems engineering. Although such structures and systems have been intensively deployed in these areas, they have been, interestingly, very rarely deployed in the field of cultural heritage preservation.This paper presents one of thefirst such attempts. A new methodology is describedthat deploys smart structures andlinks them with artificial intelligence methods.These solutions are referred toas advanced hybrid engineering artefacts. By their use,important environmental factors can be monitoredin hard to access, remote or unsafe locationsby minimizing the need for human involvement. In addition toproviding safety the methodologyalso reduces costs and, most importantly,providesa new way to modelany particular micro-environment in a much more efficient way than this is possible with traditional ways. Last but not least, although themethodology has been developed for cultural heritage preservation, its application areas are much broader and it is expected that it will find its applicationin other domains like civil engineering and ecology.