Demand-based wireless smart sensors for earthquake monitoring of civil infrastructure

Y. Fu, L. Zhu, T. Hoang, K. Mechitov, B. F. Spencer

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

Earthquakes have great impact on civil infrastructure, and the consequence of these events can be catastrophic. Not only are such damaging events rare, but they are unpredictable. Therefore, detection and early mitigation of damage is a critical issue to ensuring safety of civil infrastructure under earthquakes. One of the challenges to earthquake monitoring systems for structures is cost. Wireless sensors offer tremendous opportunity to reduce cost and realize the dream of pervasive sensing. However, earthquake monitoring of civil infrastructure using wireless smart sensors (WSS) is challenging. WSSs typically employ some form of duty cycling to reduce power consumption; hence, they will miss earthquakes if the sensor is in sleep mode when they occur. Demand-based WSSs meet the requirements of always-on earthquake monitoring within a minimal power budget by integrating an ultra-low power trigger accelerometer with a high-fidelity WSS platform and combining the beneficial aspects of both. In particular, the approach is able to rapidly turn on the WSS upon the occurrence of earthquakes and seamlessly transition to high-fidelity data acquisition. Afterwards, post-sensing data fusion is conducted to integrate the data obtained from the two sensors without losing any critical data from the triggering event. A laboratory test is presented to verify the efficacy of the proposed idea. The results show that the demand-based WSSs are able to capture the occurrence of earthquake and provide high-fidelity data for structural condition assessment in a timely manner.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationSensors and Smart Structures Technologies for Civil, Mechanical, and Aerospace Systems 2018
EditorsKon-Well Wang, Hoon Sohn, Jerome P. Lynch
PublisherSPIE
ISBN (Electronic)9781510616929
DOIs
StatePublished - 2018
EventSensors and Smart Structures Technologies for Civil, Mechanical, and Aerospace Systems 2018 - Denver, United States
Duration: Mar 5 2018Mar 8 2018

Publication series

NameProceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering
Volume10598
ISSN (Print)0277-786X
ISSN (Electronic)1996-756X

Other

OtherSensors and Smart Structures Technologies for Civil, Mechanical, and Aerospace Systems 2018
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityDenver
Period3/5/183/8/18

Keywords

  • Earthquake monitoring
  • data fusion
  • demand-based nodes
  • event-triggered sensing
  • wireless smart sensors

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials
  • Condensed Matter Physics
  • Computer Science Applications
  • Applied Mathematics
  • Electrical and Electronic Engineering

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Demand-based wireless smart sensors for earthquake monitoring of civil infrastructure'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this