Distributed Processing in Wireless Sensor Networks for Structural Health Monitoring

Abstract

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have found many applications in a variety of ubiquitous computing environments. One of the key applications is Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) which seeks to monitor the functionality and detect the possible damages of large civil engineering structures, by measuring the structural responses to ambient or forced excitation. WSNs are a promising new technique for SHM, but the contradicting considerations on the unique characteristics of WSNs and the inherent requirements of SHM pose challenges for practical implementation. Distributed processing in WSNs can help reduce energy consumption, make efficient use of network bandwidth, and improve system response time. In this paper, we analyze the design issues of WSN-based SHM, and propose distributed processing architecture with algorithms. Results of performance the evaluations using both simulation and emulation demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed approach.