Abstract
Smart monitoring systems are currently gaining more attention and are being employed in several technological areas. These devices are particularly appreciated in the structural field, where the collected data are used with purposes of real time alarm generation and remaining fatigue life estimation. Furthermore, monitoring systems allow one to take advantage of predictive maintenance logics that are nowadays essential tools for mechanical and civil structures. In this context, a smart wireless node has been designed and developed. The sensor node main tasks are to carry out accelerometric measurements, to process data on-board, and to send wirelessly synthetic information. A deep analysis of the design stage is carried out, both in terms of hardware and software development. A key role is played by energy harvesting integrated in the device, which represents a peculiar feature and it is thanks to this solution and to the adoption of low power components that the node is essentially autonomous from an energy point of view. Some prototypes have been assembled and tested in a laboratory in order to check the design features. Finally, a field test on a real structure under extreme weather conditions has been performed in order to assess the accuracy and reliability of the sensors.
Highlights
Several types of structures like buildings, bridges, wind turbines, and others are subject to harsh loading scenarios and severe environmental conditions not foreseen during the design stage
Traditional monitoring systems make use of coaxial cables to guarantee the reliability of measured data, which ensures efficient communication on the one hand but, on the other hand, the installation and maintenance of wired devices can be very expensive in terms of time and costs
The choice of the material has fallen onto Chlorinated Polyethylene (CPE), which represents a plastic material that is robust against shocks and environmental agents
Summary
Several types of structures like buildings, bridges, wind turbines, and others are subject to harsh loading scenarios and severe environmental conditions not foreseen during the design stage. Vibrations represent one of the most attractive sources for energy harvesting, especially in situations where they are continuously generated on the monitored structure This is the case of the solution proposed in [17] for a train wireless monitoring system, which is composed by sensors self-powered by means of maglev porous nanogenerators. This accurate consumption management strategy has been validated by means of an intensive monitoring activity of discharging and recharging phases In addition to these advantages, the wireless communication, based on the Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) protocol, and the accurate choice of the accelerometer allow WindNode to perform optimally continuous monitoring on real structures, as shown in detail later in the paper.
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