Health monitoring of civil infrastructures using wireless sensor networks

TLDR

The study identifies SHM requirements for WSNs and proposes new solutions to meet them. A low‑cost, non‑intrusive WSN was designed, implemented, and deployed on the Golden Gate Bridge’s main span and south tower to measure ambient structural vibrations. The deployment, the largest SHM WSN to date, collected 1 kHz vibration data from 64 nodes with <10 µs jitter and 30 µG accuracy over a 46‑hop network, achieving 441 B/s bandwidth at the furthest hop and confirming agreement with theoretical models.

Abstract

A Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) for Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) is designed, implemented, deployed and tested on the 4200ft long main span and the south tower of the Golden Gate Bridge (GGB). Ambient structural vibrations are reliably measured at a low cost and without interfering with the operation of the bridge. Requirements that SHM imposes on WSN are identified and new solutions to meet these requirements are proposed and implemented. In the GGB deployment, 64 nodes are distributed over the main span and the tower, collecting ambient vibrations synchronously at 1kHz rate, with less than 10μs jitter, and with an accuracy of 30μG. The sampled data is collected reliably over a 46-hop network, with a bandwidth of 441B/s at the 46th hop. The collected data agrees with theoretical models and previous studies of the bridge. The deployment is the largest WSN for SHM.