Development of multi-functional wireless impedance sensor nodes for structural health monitoring

This study presents the development of a multi-functional wireless sensor node for the impedance-based SHM. The bottom line is to provide multifunctional wireless sensor nodes for low cost and low power excitation/sensing, structural damage detection/sensor self-diagnosis using embedded algorithms, temperature/power monitoring, and energy scavenging. A miniaturized impedance measuring chip is utilized for low cost and low power structural excitation/selfsensing. Then, structural damage detection/sensor self-diagnosis are executed on the on-board microcontroller. Moreover, it can use the harvested power from solar energy to measure and analyze the impedance data. Simultaneously it can monitor temperature and power consumption. In order to validate the feasibility of this multi-functional wireless impedance sensor node, a series of experimental studies have been carried out for detecting loose bolts and crack damages on a lab-scale steel structure as well as on real steel bridge/building structures. As a result, it has been found that the proposed wireless impedance sensor nodes can be effectively used for local health monitoring of structural components and for constructing a low-cost and low-power but multifunctional SHM system as "place and forget" sensors.