This paper presents a new parallel distributed structural health monitoring technology
based on the wireless sensor network and multi-agent system for large scale engineering
structures. The basic idea of this new technology is that of adopting the smart wireless
sensor with on-board microprocessor to form the monitoring sensor network and the
multi-agent technology to manage the whole health monitoring system. Using this
technology, the health monitoring system becomes a distributing parallel system instead of
a serial system with all processing work done by the central computer. The functions, the
reliability, the flexibility and the speed of the whole system will be greatly improved. In
addition, with wireless communication links instead of wires, the system weight and
complexity will be lowered. In this paper, the distributed smart wireless sensor network is
designed first based on the Berkeley Mote Mica wireless sensor platform. Two kinds of
sensor have been adopted: piezoelectric sensors and electric resistance wires. They
are connected to a Mica MPR board though a designed charge amplifier circuit
or bridge circuit and MTS101 board. Seven kinds of agents are defined for the
structural health monitoring system. A distributed health monitoring architecture
based on the defined agents is proposed. Finally, a composite structural health
monitoring system based on a Mica wireless platform and multi-agent technology is
developed to evaluate the efficacy of the new technology. The developed system
can successfully monitor the concentrated load position or a loose bolt position.
This paper presents a wireless sensor network node designed for building a structural
health monitoring (SHM) application. To develop a low-cost, low-power, dedicated wireless
sensor node for a composite SHM system, a modular approach is taken in the design of the
wireless sensor node. Three functional modules are adopted, including a sensor input unit,
processing core and wireless communication. Different from existing wireless sensor nodes,
the signal conditioning circuit is designed on this developed node for two typical SHM
sensors, the piezoelectric sensor and the strain gauge. The developed wireless sensor
nodes can be expediently used to deploy the dedicated wireless sensor network for
SHM application. A two-tier wireless sensor network is deployed adopting the
designed wireless sensor nodes to verify the efficacy of developing SHM systems. An
embedding pattern matching method and a directed diffusion routing algorithm are
developed to monitor the strain distribution or the bolt loosening position successfully.
This study introduces recent research advances on the structural health monitoring (SHM) at Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (NUAA). Distributed SHM technology for large-scale engineering structures is discussed. First, a hybrid wing box health monitoring evaluation system is presented. This evaluation system is developed to verify the piezoelectric sensor array-based active Lamb wave diagnostic method and the fiber Bragg grating sensor-based structural strain monitoring method. Second, distributed health monitoring technology based on the multi-agent system (MAS) technology is discussed. This research includes the individual agent design, the MAS-based SHM system architecture design, and three important aspects in designing the MAS-based SHM system. An evaluation case is presented in detail to show the advantages of the MAS-based SHM system. Finally, the study illustrates the motivation of the agents realized by a wireless sensor network. The developed wireless sensor nodes are also described.
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