• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.15 no.3
• /
• pp.285-297
• /
• 2003

Complementing recent advances made in the field of structural health monitoring and damage detection, the concept of a wireless sensing network with distributed computational power is proposed. The fundamental building block of the proposed sensing network is a wireless sensing unit capable of acquiring measurement data, interrogating the data and transmitting the data in real time. The computational core of a prototype wireless sensing unit can potentially be utilized for execution of embedded engineering analyses such as damage detection and system identification. To illustrate the computational capabilities of the proposed wireless sensing unit, the fast Fourier transform and auto-regressive time-series modeling are locally executed by the unit. Fast Fourier transforms and auto-regressive models are two important techniques that have been previously used for the identification of damage in structural systems. Their embedment illustrates the computational capabilities of the prototype wireless sensing unit and suggests strong potential for unit installation in automated structural health monitoring systems.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.17 no.3_4
• /
• pp.393-408
• /
• 2004

There exists a clear need to monitor the performance of civil structures over their operational lives. Current commercial monitoring systems suffer from various technological and economic limitations that prevent their widespread adoption. The wires used to route measurements from system sensors to the centralized data server represent one of the greatest limitations since they are physically vulnerable and expensive from an installation and maintenance standpoint. In lieu of cables, the introduction of low-cost wireless communications is proposed. The result is the design of a prototype wireless sensing unit that can serve as the fundamental building block of wireless modular monitoring systems (WiMMS). An additional feature of the wireless sensing unit is the incorporation of computational power in the form of state-of-art microcontrollers. The prototype unit is validated with a series of laboratory and field tests. The Alamosa Canyon Bridge is employed to serve as a full-scale benchmark structure to validate the performance of the wireless sensing unit in the field. A traditional cable-based monitoring system is installed in parallel with the wireless sensing units for performance comparison.

• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• v.3 no.1
• /
• pp.69-88
• /
• 2007

In this study, Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) are investigated as a practical solution to the challenge of designing an optimal platform for implementing algorithms in a wireless sensing unit for structuralhealth monitoring. Inherent advantages, such as tremendous processing power, coupled with reconfigurable and flexible architecture render FPGAs a prime candidate for the processing core in an optimal wireless sensor unit, especially when handling Digital Signal Processing (DSP) and system identification algorithms. This paper presents an effort to create a proof-of-concept unit, wherein an off-the-shelf FPGA development board, available at a price comparable to a microprocessor development board, was adopted. Data processing functions, including windowing, Fast Fourier Transform (FFT), and peak detection, were implemented in the FPGA using a Matlab Simulink-based high-level abstraction tool rather than hardware descriptive language. Simulations and laboratory tests were carried out to validate the design.

• IEMEK Journal of Embedded Systems and Applications
• /
• v.11 no.2
• /
• pp.79-86
• /
• 2016

In wireless sensor networks, increasing the sensing rate of each node to improve the data accuracy usually incurs a decrease of network lifetime. In this study, an energy-adaptive data compression scheme is proposed to efficiently control the sensing rate in an energy-harvesting wireless sensor network (WSN). In the proposed scheme, by utilizing the surplus energy effectively for the data compression, each node can increase the sensing rate without any rise of blackout time. Simulation result verifies that the proposed scheme gathers more amount of sensory data per unit time with lower number of blackout nodes than the other compression schemes for WSN.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
• /
• v.32 no.3
• /
• pp.285-292
• /
• 2015

This paper presents a wireless ground reaction force (GRF) sensing system for ambulatory GRF recording. The system is largely divided into three parts: force sensing modules based on optical sensor, outsole type frame, and embedded system for wireless communication. The force sensing module has advantages of the low height, robustness to the moment interference, and stable response in long term use. In simulation study, the strain and stress properties were examined to satisfy the requirements of the GRF sensing system. Four sensing modules were mounted on the toe, ball, and heel of foot shaped frame, respectively. The GRF signals were extracted using Micrpcontroller unit and transferred to the smart phone via Bluetooth communication. We measured the GRF during the normal walking for the validation of the continuous recording capability. The recorded GRF was comparable to the off the shelf stationary force plate.

• Wind and Structures
• /
• v.8 no.3
• /
• pp.179-196
• /
• 2005

This paper describes the application of a wireless data acquisition system to monitor wind pressures and velocities with absolute pressure sensors and an anemometer. The system was developed for future deployment, as part of a research effort currently underway to instrument coastal homes in Florida to monitor roof wind pressures during hurricanes. The proposed wireless system will replace the current system that involves a large amount of hardwired connections from the sensors to the data processing unit that requires labor intensive wiring and preparation of the home. The paper describes comparison studies and field tests to assess the performance of the system. The new system offers the advantages of light hardware, ease of installation, capacity for 48 hours of continuous data acquisition, good frequency and amplitude responses, and a relatively simple maintenance. However, the tests also show that the shape of the shell that has been previously used to protect the sensors might interfere with the proper measurement of the pressures.

• ETRI Journal
• /
• v.34 no.4
• /
• pp.553-563
• /
• 2012

Serial peripheral interface (SPI) has been identified as a bottleneck in many wireless sensing systems today. SPI is used almost universally as the physical connection between the microcontroller unit (MCU) and radios, storage devices, and many types of sensors. Virtually all wireless sensor nodes today perform up to twice as many bus transactions as necessary to transfer a given piece of data, as an MCU must serve as the bus master in all transactions. To eliminate this bottleneck, we propose the master-handoff protocol. After the MCU initiates reading from the source slave device and writing to the sink slave device, the MCU as a master becomes a slave, and either the source or the sink slave becomes the temporary master. Experiment results show that this master-handoff technique not only cuts the data transfer time in half, but, more importantly, also enables a superlinear energy reduction.

• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• v.4 no.3
• /
• pp.305-318
• /
• 2008

The development of a digital signal processor based prototype is described in relation to continuing efforts for realizing a fully self-contained active sensor system utilizing impedance-based structural health monitoring. The impedance method utilizes a piezoelectric material bonded to the structure under observation to act as both an actuator and sensor. By monitoring the electrical impedance of the piezoelectric material, insights into the health of the structured can be inferred. The active sensing system detailed in this paper interrogates a structure utilizing a self-sensing actuator and a low cost impedance method. Here, all the data processing, storage, and analysis is performed at the sensor location. A wireless transmitter is used to communicate the current status of the structure. With this new low cost, field deployable impedance analyzer, reliance on traditional expensive, bulky, and power consuming impedance analyzers is no longer necessary. A complete power analysis of the prototype is performed to determine the validity of power harvesting being utilized for self-containment of the hardware. Experimental validation of the prototype on a representative structure is also performed and compared to traditional methods of damage detection.

• International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
• /
• v.5 no.1
• /
• pp.64-69
• /
• 2017

The rapid growth of algae occurs can induce the algae bloom when nutrients are supplied from anthropogenic sources such as fertilizer, animal waste or sewage in runoff the water currents or upwelling naturally. The algae blooms creates the human health problem in the environment as well as in the water resource managers including hypoxic dead zones and harmful toxins and pose challenges to water treatment systems. The algal blooms in the source water in water treatment systems affects the drinking water taste & odor while clogging or damaging filtration systems and putting a strain on the systems designed to remove algal toxins from the source water. This paper propose the emerging In-Situ self-diagnosable smart algae sensing device with wireless connectivity for smart remote monitoring and control. In this research, we developed the In-Site Algae diagnosable sensing device with wireless sensor network (WSN) connectivity with Optical Biological Sensor and environmental sensor to monitor the water treatment systems. The proposed system emulated in real-time on the water treatment plant and functional evaluation parameters are presented as part of the conceptual proof to the proposed research.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
• /
• v.9 no.11
• /
• pp.46-53
• /
• 2009

This study aims to develop a mobile-based portable u-Health Monitoring System which provides a personal medical service on demand by processing patients' data intellectually achieved through sensing technique of non-restriction/non-consciousness oriented and deciding. To do this, we composed a USN-based portable monitoring unit. It is the one, that contains a somatometry sensor which is attached to patient's body and detects bio information, a portable wireless terminal which receives information from the sensor and transmits it to monitor server, and a monitor server which interprets received data through wireless network and processes. Also, it tries to develop a non-restriction /non-consciousness oriented sensing technique which is related to glycosuria and cardiovascular diseases.