| As the demands to monitor the health status of structures increase, researchers around the world have proposed several concepts to solve this issue. This research first examines the existing technologies and then works toward a novel structural health monitoring solution. A comprehensive discussion includes major topics from sensor selection and installation to sensing data display. A cyber-physical system combining embedded system, wireless communication, and the Java platform was developed for structural health monitoring. The focus of this system is to continuously monitor structural response and broadcast the information to users worldwide via the Internet. A wireless sensor node is designed to connect up to eight sensor channels. Various sensors have been tested on the sensor node. A data acquisition and repository system was also developed. The use of the Java language makes this system capable of running in virtually any existing computer platform. Distributed design concept expands its functionalities and capabilities. Its graphical user interface offers users a friendly and ease-of-use environment to monitor real-time and historical data in both graphical and numerical ways. Every component of the system has been validated to verify its functionality. Additionally, the whole system has been implemented on a steel pedestrian bridge to observe its performance. |
