Design and Field Validation of a Low Power Wireless Sensor Node for Structural Health Monitoring

Self Cite

Nowadays, railway freight transportation is becoming more and more crucial since it represents the best alternative to road transport in terms of sustainability, pollution, and impact on the environment and on public health. Upgrading the potentiality of this kind of transportation, it would be possible to avoid delays in goods deliveries due to road accidents, traffic jams, and other situation occurring on roads. A key factor in this framework is therefore represented by monitoring and maintenance of the train components. Implementing a real time monitoring of the main components and a predictive maintenance approach, it would be possible to avoid unexpected breakdowns and consequently unavailability of wagons for unscheduled repair activities. As highlighted in recent statistical analysis, one of the elements more critical in case of failure is represented by the brake system. In this view, a real time monitoring of pressure values in some specific points of the system would provide significant information on its health status. In addition, since the braking actions are related to the load present on the convoy, thanks to this kind of monitoring, it would be possible to appreciate the different behavior of the system in case of loaded and unloaded trains. This paper presented an innovative wireless monitoring system to perform brake system diagnostics. A low-power system architecture, in terms of energy harvesting and wireless communication, was developed due to the difficulty in applying a wired monitoring system to a freight convoy. The developed system allows acquiring brake pressure data in critical points in order to verify the correct behavior of the brake system. Experimental results collected during a five-month field test were provided to validate the approach.

Section: Sensor Descriptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…From the hardware side, the main innovation with respect to the sensor architecture described in [31] is represented by the implementation of a Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) pressure transducer, namely the Honeywell SSCDANN150PAAA3. Among the different models present on the market, this device was chosen for various reasons.…”

Section: Hardwarementioning

confidence: 99%

Energy Autonomous Wireless Sensor Nodes for Freight Train Braking Systems Monitoring

Zanelli

Mauri

Dezza

et al. 2022

Self Cite

“…[ 33 , 34 , 36 , 43 , 45 , 46 , 49 , 50 ] (cf., also [ 28 , 47 , 48 , 54 , 116 , 117 , 118 , 119 , 120 , 121 , 122 ]). Results suggest that sensors have, as parasite technologies (i.e., depending on other technologies; [ 17 ]), a wide spectrum of applications in medicine, environmental pollution, aircraft and automotive industries [ 123 , 124 , 125 , 126 , 127 ]. Moreover, the success of smart sensors is associated with the integration of the Internet of Things, through which it is possible to connect devices and exchange information among people, systems, objects and many other devices [ 128 ].…”

Section: Conclusion Limitations and Prospectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scientific Developments and New Technological Trajectories in Sensor Research

Coccia

Roshani

Mosleh

2021

Scientific developments and new technological trajectories in sensors play an important role in understanding technological and social change. The goal of this study is to develop a scientometric analysis (using scientific documents and patents) to explain the evolution of sensor research and new sensor technologies that are critical to science and society. Results suggest that new directions in sensor research are driving technological trajectories of wireless sensor networks, biosensors and wearable sensors. These findings can help scholars to clarify new paths of technological change in sensors and policymakers to allocate research funds towards research fields and sensor technologies that have a high potential of growth for generating a positive societal impact.

“…Zanelli et al [ 27 ] proposed that the WindNode has been developed to be energetically autonomous through a balance between very low mean power consumption and the inflow of energy coming from the Photovoltaic panels. The achieved low energy consumption has been obtained by choosing suitable electronic components and implementing a state machine according to which the node stays in sleep mode most of the time.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Long-Range Low-Power Multi-Hop Wireless Sensor Network for Monitoring the Vibration Response of Long-Span Bridges

Tronci

Nagabuko

Hieda

et al. 2022

Recently, vibration-based monitoring technologies have become extremely popular, providing effective tools to assess the health condition and evaluate the structural integrity of civil structures and infrastructures in real-time. In this context, battery-operated wireless sensors allow us to stop using wired sensor networks, providing easy installation processes and low maintenance costs. Nevertheless, wireless transmission of high-rate data such as structural vibration consumes considerable power. Consequently, these wireless networks demand frequent battery replacement, which is problematic for large structures with poor accessibility, such as long-span bridges. This work proposes a low-power multi-hop wireless sensor network suitable for monitoring large-sized civil infrastructures to handle this problem. The proposed network employs low-power wireless devices that act in the sub-GHz band, permitting long-distance data transmission and communication surpassing 1 km. Data collection over vast areas is accomplished via multi-hop communication, in which the sensor data are acquired and re-transmitted by neighboring sensors. The communication and transmission times are synchronized, and time-division communication is executed, which depends on the wireless devices to sleep when the connection is not necessary to consume less power. An experimental field test is performed to evaluate the reliability and accuracy of the designed wireless sensor network to collect and capture the acceleration response of the long-span Manhattan Bridge. Thanks to the high-quality monitoring data collected with the developed low-power wireless sensor network, the natural frequencies and mode shapes were robustly recognized. The monitoring tests also showed the benefits of the presented wireless sensor system concerning the installation and measuring operations.