The Development of an On-line Structural Health Monitoring System based on Wireless Sensor Networks

Monitoring structural conditions of the large number of aging bridges in the national transportation infrastructure has become an important issue that directly impacts public safety. Traditional manual inspection not only requires extremely high cost but also cannot address this problem in a timely manner. The wireless sensor networks have been accepted as a promising solution to the above problems. In this paper we have presented an on-line structural health monitoring system that consists of wireless sensor networks for real- time sensing and data sever for on-line analyzing. We designed each component, integrated them to the whole system, and deployed it to one of our campus bridges. Our laboratory simulation and prototype experimental results have verified the functionality and correctness of our system.