Design of a Robust, High-rate Wireless Sensor Network for Static and Dynamic Structural Monitoring

Abstract

Over recent years, there has been much interest in the use of low-cost wireless transceivers for communication of sensor data to alleviate the expense of widely distributed cable-based sensors in structural monitoring systems. However, while the number of unique wireless sensor platforms has continued to expand rapidly, the lack of success in replicating the number of deployed sensors and sampling rates utilized in previous cable-based systems has led to disillusionment over their use for this application. This article presents a wireless sensing system designed for concurrent measurement of both static and dynamic structural response through strain transducers, accelerometers, and temperature sensors. The network protocol developed supports real-time, high-rate data acquisition from large wireless sensor arrays with essentially no data loss. The current network software enables high-rate acquisition of up to 40 channels across 20 wireless units on a single peer-to-peer network with system expansion enabled through additional networks operating simultaneously on adjacent communication channels. Elements of the system design have been specifically tailored towards addressing condition assessment of highway bridges through strain-based load ratings as well as vibration-based dynamic analysis. However, the flexible system architecture enables the system to serve essentially as an off-the-shelf solution for a wide array of wireless sensing tasks. The wireless sensing units and network performance have been validated through laboratory tests as well as dense large-scale field deployments on an in-service highway bridge.

TDMA proposals for wireless sensor networks for highly reliable and energy efficient data collection in an industrial application

“…Wireless structural health monitoring systems seem to have similar requirements to the WSN protocol, like Whelan et al described in [9]. They use an 802.15.4 conform implementation based on the operating system TinyOS with clear channel assessment (CCA) controlled medium access.…”

Real-time wireless vibration monitoring for operational modal analysis of an integral abutment highway bridge

“…The device is compliant with U.S. and Canadian radio frequency regulations and is certified by the FCC and Industry Canada for unlicensed use in either country. A complete description of the wireless sensor network hardware and software as well as results of laboratory validation can be found in Whelan and Janoyan [12].…”

Phase Space Dissimilarity Measures for Structural Health Monitoring

“…IEEE standards establish the basic components for these protocols, but leave room for custom protocol arrangements. For example, Whelan and Janoyan (2009) used the Tmote Sky platform, which had a Chipcon CC2420 transceiver, operating under the IEEE 802.15.4 standard, but they developed their own sophisticated communication protocol and achieved excellent transmission success rate One common communication system that uses the peer-to-peer topology is called ZigBee, which is popular for many WSN applications, including SHM. Zigbee is based on the IEEE 802.…”