Design and Implementation of a Portable Wireless System for Structural Health Monitoring

Abstract

In the health monitoring of large metal structure, the traditional strain measurement systems with wired and bulky instruments face the challenges of harsh environment, changing network topology and limited energy supply. To meet these requirements and improve the efficiency, a portable wireless strain monitoring system combined with wireless sensor network technology and portable design has been developed in this paper. Consisting of handheld coordinator, router and sensor, this novel system takes miniaturization, portability and low-power design as core capabilities in both software and hardware design. With tests in laboratory environment, its time domain response and power consumption have been analyzed to verify its performance and efficiency. Additionally, after calibration on an equal strength cantilever, comparative tests on quayside cranes have been explored to show that this system has an equivalent accuracy compared with the traditional measurement system. However, it improves the work efficiency and can meet the serious challenges within health monitoring of large metal structure.