Sensor Networks for Structures Health Monitoring: Placement, Implementations, and Challenges—A Review

Abstract

The development of structural health monitoring (SHM) systems and their integration in actual structures has become a necessity as it can provide a robust and low-cost solution for monitoring the structural integrity of and the ability to predict the remaining life of structures. In this review, we aim at focusing on one of the important issues of SHM, the design, and implementation of sensor networks. Location and number of sensors, in any SHM system, are of high importance as they impact the system integration, system performance, and accuracy of assessment, as well as the total cost. Hence we are interested in shedding the light on the sensor networks as an essential component of SHM systems. The review discusses several important parameters including design and optimization of sensor networks, development of academic and commercial solutions, powering of sensors, data communication, data transmission, and analytics. Finally, we presented some successful case studies including the challenges and limitations associated with the sensor networks.

Active Ultrasonic Structural Health Monitoring Enabled by Piezoelectric Direct-Write Transducers and Edge Computing Process

“…Energy consumption is another important factor to be considered for SHM system [ 39 , 40 ]. By decreasing data size for the ultrasonic signals through the edge-computing processes, the total energy required for a sequential ultrasonic scan has been substantially decreased by 224 times.…”

“…To scale up active ultrasonic SHM into a wide-area sensing network (WSN), further challenges associated with electrical wiring and circuitry, power installation, and signal transmission of the sensing nodes have to be addressed [ 39 , 40 ]. Various engineering solutions, including wireless data transmission, low-power electronics sustainable by batteries or energy harvesters and circuitry miniaturization, have been applied for SHM [ 41 , 42 , 43 ].…”

Design of a Robust Tool for Deploying Large-Area Stretchable Sensor Networks from Microscale to Macroscale

“…In Tables 1 and 2, the works above are categorized by their geometries, deployment methods, sensor types, and applications. Recent progress in this field is also reviewed in [46,47]. [40] Self-Similar Unspecified Zhang et al, 2013, [38] "S" interconnect Specialized Fixture Fan et al, 2013, [41] Fractal Not Stretched Jang et al, 2014, [33] Fractal Unspecified Gutbrod et al, 2014, [37] "S" interconnect Not Stretched Hua et al, 2018, [13] "S" interconnect Unspecified Wang et al, 2019, [3] Self-Similar Unspecified While these works show promise across domains as diverse as structural health monitoring, medical devices, and multimodal sensing, most of these works performed the actual network expansion in an unspecified way, save for Fan et al, who claimed the use of specialized fixtures.…”

Study on Health Monitoring and Fatigue Life Prediction of Aircraft Structures

“…In relation to sensor network design, Bhuiyan et al [ 41 ] studied the position optimization method of a wireless sensor and designed a three-stage sensor installation method, which can reduce the fault probability of a wireless sensor; they also verified the effectiveness and performance of the system simulation by the measured data and physical method. Mustapha et al [ 42 ] carried out the design and optimization of sensor networks, sensor power supply, data analysis and other important parameters, and presented a successful example. Henderson [ 43 ] studied the Bayesian calculation model for a SHM sensor in undamaged composite materials, and gave improved estimations for a physical model, sensor node parameters and input source parameters.…”