A wireless structural health monitoring system with multithreaded sensing devices: design and validation

TLDR

Structural health monitoring is crucial for ensuring the safety of civil structures, yet traditional wire‑based systems are costly and time‑consuming, prompting the development of wireless alternatives. This paper introduces an integrated wireless monitoring system that enables real‑time data acquisition from multiple wireless sensing units. The system employs a low‑power, long‑range transceiver, embedded multithreaded software, and a reliable data‑communication protocol to achieve real‑time, near‑synchronized acquisition from multiple units. Prototype validation in laboratory and field tests on the Geumdang Bridge shows that the multithreaded sensing units can simultaneously collect, interrogate, and transmit data in real time.

Abstract

Structural health monitoring (SHM) has become an important research problem which has the potential to monitor and ensure the performance and safety of civil structures. Traditional wire-based SHM systems require significant time and cost for cable installation. With the recent advances in wireless communication technology, wireless SHM systems have emerged as a promising alternative solution for rapid, accurate and low-cost structural monitoring. This paper presents a newly designed integrated wireless monitoring system that supports real-time data acquisition from multiple wireless sensing units. The selected wireless transceiver consumes relatively low power and supports long-distance peer-to-peer communication. In addition to hardware, embedded multithreaded software is also designed as an integral component of the proposed wireless monitoring system. A direct result of the multithreaded software paradigm is a wireless sensing unit capable of simultaneous data collection, data interrogation and wireless transmission. A reliable data communication protocol is designed and implemented, enabling robust real-time and near-synchronized data acquisition from multiple wireless sensing units. An integrated prototype system has been fabricated, assembled, and validated in both laboratory tests and in a large-scale field test conducted upon the Geumdang Bridge in Icheon, South Korea.