• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• v.7 no.2
• /
• pp.83-102
• /
• 2011

As a testbed for various structural health monitoring (SHM) technologies, a super-tall structure - the 610 m-tall Guangzhou Television and Sightseeing Tower (GTST) in southern China - is currently under construction. This study aims to explore state-of-the-art wireless sensing technologies for monitoring the ambient vibration of such a super-tall structure during construction. The very nature of wireless sensing frees the system from the need for extensive cabling and renders the system suitable for use on construction sites where conditions continuously change. On the other hand, unique technical hurdles exist when deploying wireless sensors in real-life structural monitoring applications. For example, the low-frequency and low-amplitude ambient vibration of the GTST poses significant challenges to sensor signal conditioning and digitization. Reliable wireless transmission over long distances is another technical challenge when utilized in such a super-tall structure. In this study, wireless sensing measurements are conducted at multiple heights of the GTST tower. Data transmission between a wireless sensing device installed at the upper levels of the tower and a base station located at the ground level (a distance that exceeds 443 m) is implemented. To verify the quality of the wireless measurements, the wireless data is compared with data collected by a conventional cable-based monitoring system. This preliminary study demonstrates that wireless sensing technologies have the capability of monitoring the low-amplitude and low-frequency ambient vibration of a super-tall and slender structure like the GTST.

• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• v.12 no.6
• /
• pp.661-678
• /
• 2013

In this paper, a wireless sensing system for structural field evaluation and rating of bridges is presented. The system uses a wireless platform integrated with traditional analogue sensors including strain gages and accelerometers along with the operating software. A wireless vehicle position indicator is developed using a tri-axial accelerometer node that is mounted on the test vehicle, and was used for identifying the moving truck position during load testing. The developed software is capable of calculating the theoretical bridge rating factors based on AASHTO Load and Resistance Factor Rating specifications, and automatically produces the field adjustment factor through load testing data. The sensing system along with its application in bridge deck rating was successfully demonstrated on the Evansville Bridge in West Virginia. A finite element model was conducted for the test bridge, and was used to calculate the load distribution factors of the bridge deck after verifying its results using field data. A confirmation field test was conducted on the same bridge and its results varied by only 3% from the first test. The proposed wireless sensing system proved to be a reliable tool that overcomes multiple drawbacks of conventional wired sensing platforms designed for structural load evaluation of bridges.

• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• v.6 no.5_6
• /
• pp.731-748
• /
• 2010

Impact detection and health monitoring are very important tasks for civil infrastructures, such as bridges. Piezoceramic based transducers are widely researched for these tasks due to the piezoceramic material's inherent advantages of dual sensing and actuation ability, which enables the active sensing method for structural health monitoring with a network of piezoceramic transducers. Wireless sensor networks, which are easy for deployment, have great potential in health monitoring systems for large civil infrastructures to identify early-age damages. However, most commercial wireless sensor networks are general purpose and may not be optimized for a network of piezoceramic based transducers. Wireless networks of piezoceramic transducers for active sensing have special requirements, such as relatively high sampling rate (at a few-thousand Hz), incorporation of an amplifier for the piezoceramic element for actuation, and low energy consumption for actuation. In this paper, a wireless network is specially designed for piezoceramic transducers to implement impact detection and active sensing for structural health monitoring. A power efficient embedded system is designed to form the wireless sensor network that is capable of high sampling rate. A 32 bit RISC wireless microcontroller is chosen as the main processor. Detailed design of the hardware system and software system of the wireless sensor network is presented in this paper. To verify the functionality of the wireless sensor network, it is deployed on a two-story concrete frame with embedded piezoceramic transducers, and the active sensing property of piezoceramic material is used to detect the damage in the structure. Experimental results show that the wireless sensor network can effectively implement active sensing and impact detection with high sampling rate while maintaining low power consumption by performing offline data processing and minimizing wireless communication.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.17 no.3_4
• /
• pp.393-408
• /
• 2004

There exists a clear need to monitor the performance of civil structures over their operational lives. Current commercial monitoring systems suffer from various technological and economic limitations that prevent their widespread adoption. The wires used to route measurements from system sensors to the centralized data server represent one of the greatest limitations since they are physically vulnerable and expensive from an installation and maintenance standpoint. In lieu of cables, the introduction of low-cost wireless communications is proposed. The result is the design of a prototype wireless sensing unit that can serve as the fundamental building block of wireless modular monitoring systems (WiMMS). An additional feature of the wireless sensing unit is the incorporation of computational power in the form of state-of-art microcontrollers. The prototype unit is validated with a series of laboratory and field tests. The Alamosa Canyon Bridge is employed to serve as a full-scale benchmark structure to validate the performance of the wireless sensing unit in the field. A traditional cable-based monitoring system is installed in parallel with the wireless sensing units for performance comparison.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
• /
• v.32 no.3
• /
• pp.285-292
• /
• 2015

This paper presents a wireless ground reaction force (GRF) sensing system for ambulatory GRF recording. The system is largely divided into three parts: force sensing modules based on optical sensor, outsole type frame, and embedded system for wireless communication. The force sensing module has advantages of the low height, robustness to the moment interference, and stable response in long term use. In simulation study, the strain and stress properties were examined to satisfy the requirements of the GRF sensing system. Four sensing modules were mounted on the toe, ball, and heel of foot shaped frame, respectively. The GRF signals were extracted using Micrpcontroller unit and transferred to the smart phone via Bluetooth communication. We measured the GRF during the normal walking for the validation of the continuous recording capability. The recorded GRF was comparable to the off the shelf stationary force plate.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.15 no.3
• /
• pp.285-297
• /
• 2003

Complementing recent advances made in the field of structural health monitoring and damage detection, the concept of a wireless sensing network with distributed computational power is proposed. The fundamental building block of the proposed sensing network is a wireless sensing unit capable of acquiring measurement data, interrogating the data and transmitting the data in real time. The computational core of a prototype wireless sensing unit can potentially be utilized for execution of embedded engineering analyses such as damage detection and system identification. To illustrate the computational capabilities of the proposed wireless sensing unit, the fast Fourier transform and auto-regressive time-series modeling are locally executed by the unit. Fast Fourier transforms and auto-regressive models are two important techniques that have been previously used for the identification of damage in structural systems. Their embedment illustrates the computational capabilities of the prototype wireless sensing unit and suggests strong potential for unit installation in automated structural health monitoring systems.

• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• v.4 no.6
• /
• pp.759-777
• /
• 2008

A wireless sensing system is designed for application to structural monitoring and damage detection applications. Embedded in the wireless monitoring module is a two-tier prediction model, the auto-regressive (AR) and the autoregressive model with exogenous inputs (ARX), used to obtain damage sensitive features of a structure. To validate the performance of the proposed wireless monitoring and damage detection system, two near full scale single-story RC-frames, with and without brick wall system, are instrumented with the wireless monitoring system for real time damage detection during shaking table tests. White noise and seismic ground motion records are applied to the base of the structure using a shaking table. Pattern classification methods are then adopted to classify the structure as damaged or undamaged using time series coefficients as entities of a damage-sensitive feature vector. The demonstration of the damage detection methodology is shown to be capable of identifying damage using a wireless structural monitoring system. The accuracy and sensitivity of the MEMS-based wireless sensors employed are also verified through comparison to data recorded using a traditional wired monitoring system.

• 한국정보통신설비학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 2007.08a
• /
• pp.176-180
• /
• 2007

In this study, we deployed the cable tunnel inspection and monitoring system by wireless sensor network. It is shown that the wireless sensor network which is composed of sensor, wireless communication module, and gateway can be applied to cable tunnel monitoring system. Sensors considered herein are flame detection sensor, flood detection sensor, intruder detection sensor, and temperature sensor, etc. It is also found that the wireless sensor network can deliver sensing data reliably by wireless sensing technology. The gateway system that can transmit sensed data to server by CDMA is developed. Monitoring system is constructed by web service technology, and it is observed that this system can monitor the present state of tunnel without difficulties. The system provides an alternative to inspect and monitor the tunnel efficiently where the conventional wired system is infeasible.

• 한국방재학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 2008.02a
• /
• pp.549-552
• /
• 2008

In this study, we deployed the cable tunnel inspection and monitoring system by wireless sensor network. It is shown that the wireless sensor network which is composed of sensor, wireless communication module, and gateway can be applied to cable tunnel monitoring system. Sensors considered herein are flame detection sensor, flood detection sensor, intruder detection sensor, and temperature sensor, etc. It is also found that the wireless sensor network can deliver sensing data reliably by wireless sensing technology. The gateway system that can transmit sensed data to server by CDMA is developed. Monitoring system is constructed by web service technology, and it is observed that this system can monitor the present state of tunnel without difficulties. The system provides an alternative to inspecting and monitoring the tunnel efficiently where the conventional wired system is infeasible.

• International Journal of Internet, Broadcasting and Communication
• /
• v.12 no.3
• /
• pp.32-38
• /
• 2020

The deployment of geographically distributed wireless sensors has greatly elevated the capability of monitoring structural health in social-overhead capital (SOC) public infrastructures. This paper deals with the utilization of a distributed mobility management (DMM) approach for the deployment of wireless sensing devices in a structural health monitoring system (SHM). Then, a wireless sensing mechanism utilizing low-energy adaptive clustering hierarchy (LEACH)-based clustering algorithm for smart sensors has been analyzed to support the seamless data transmission of structural health information which is essentially important to guarantee public safety. The clustering of smart sensors will be able to provide real-time monitoring of structural health and a filtering algorithm to boost the transmission of critical information over heterogeneous wireless and mobile networks.