Smart Wireless Sensor Technology for Structural Health Monitoring of Civil Structures

This paper presents the results of international cooperative researches on smart wireless sensors and SHM of civil structures among KAIST, the University of Michigan, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. At first, the state-of-art in the smart wireless sensor technology is reviewed. The subsystems of a smart wireless sensor are discussed, and available wireless sensor platforms developed in the academia and industries are reviewed. Then three smart wireless SHM systems developed by the present authors are applied to SHM of various types of civil structures in this study. The first example is a distributed modal identification system using a smart wireless sensor platform, which is applied to the modal identification of a balcony structure in a historic theatre. The second one is a low-cost and autonomous wireless tension estimation system for cable-stayed bridges, which is employed for modal identification and tension estimation of a stay cable. The last one is an autonomous decentralized SHM system, which is applied to damage detection on a 3-D steel truss structure.