2016 IEEE 59th International Midwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems (MWSCAS), 16-19 October 2016, Abu Dhabi,

UAE

Structural Health Monitoring: Internet of Things

Application
Ahmed Abdelgawad, Kumar Yelamarthi
School of Engineering & Technology
Central Michigan University, ET100
Mount Pleasant, MI 48859, USA

Abstract— We begin to co-exist and interact with smart time of flight is directly dependent on the properties of the
interconnected devices that are known as the Internet of Things material like modulus of elasticity and modulus of rigidity.
(IoT). The IoT brings new opportunities for our society. Yet, Hardware implementation is necessary for the practical
most of the existing Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) implementation of SHM. Different types of hardware
systems are not connected to the IoT. SHM is a system to implementation techniques are used by many researchers. Park
monitor the structural health of buildings and bridges. In this et al. proposed an online instantaneous baseline structural
paper, a complete real-time SHM platform is integrated with damage detection technique using a low cost and low power
the IoT system. The proposed platform consists of a Pro-Trinket piezoelectric guided waves system. A TMS320F2812 Digital
microcontroller, NRF transceiver module, Wi-Fi module, and Signal Processing (DSP) module was employed for signal
Raspberry Pi. Two piezoelectric sensors are mounted on the generation/excitation, sensing, and data processing. The DSP
structure to collect data continually. A proposed mathematical applied an instantaneous baseline damage identification
model is implemented on the Pro-Trinket to detect the health of algorithm based on Wavelet Transform (WT) and Cross-
the structure using the piezoelectric sensors output. If there is Correlation (CC) analysis [9]. Traditional wired SHM system
any damage, the Pro-Trinket will determine the damage requires long deployment time and a significant cost for wire
location and size, and send this information to the Raspberry Pi installation. Last decade, a large number of researchers have
using NRF transceiver. Raspberry Pi acts as a hub to collect the been focused on using Wireless Sensor Network (WSN). Gao
data from many such NRF transceivers located in different et al. presented a real-time wireless piezoelectric sensor
locations on the structure. The Raspberry Pi will upload the data platform for distributed large-scale SHM with high sampling
to the cloud using a Wi-Fi module. The data will be stored in rate up to 12.5Msps and distributed lamb-wave data processing.
the cloud and can be checked remotely from any mobile device. A set of PZT transducers were deployed at the surface of the
The system has been validated using a real test bed in the lab. structure. A lamb-wave was excited and its propagation within
the structure was inspected to identify damages. The developed
Keywords— Internet of Things (IoT); piezoelectric sensor; pitch- wireless node platform features a DSP of TMS320F28335 and
catch; pulse-echo; SHM an improved IEEE 802.15.4 wireless data transducer RF233
with up to 2Mbps data rate [9]. There are many other attempts
I. INTRODUCTION
to implement SHM using Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) [11-
Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) is a vital tool to 18].
improve the safety and maintainability of critical structures
such as bridges and buildings. SHM provides real-time and With the maturity of the smart technology, one of the recent
accurate information about the structural health condition. It is challenges in the structural engineering community is the
a process of nondestructive evaluations to detect location and developing of the IoT SHM systems that could provide a
extent of damage, calculate the remaining life, and predict promising solution for rapid, accurate, and low-cost SHM
upcoming accidents. SHM process incorporates many sensors systems. Moreover, the combination of SHM, cloud computing,
e.g. accelerometer [1], ultrasonic [2], camera [3], piezoelectric and the IoT will enable ubiquitous services and powerful
[4-8] etc. Piezoelectric transducers (PZT) is the most common processing of sensing data streams beyond the capability of
used sensor; it can transmit and receive guided waves such as traditional SHM system. Cloud platform allows the SHM data
lamb waves in solids that can be used for damage detection. to be stored and used intelligently for smart monitoring and
These Lamb waves are much more cost effective as well as actuation with smart devices. Lazo et al. proposed a solution for
reliable as they are sensitive to change in structures. To communicating devices that monitor the health of a bridge. The
distinguish the damage, the difference signal is acquired and proposed solution is based on 6LoWPAN, a standard based on
compared with a damage free signal. For structural damage the IPv6 protocol over low-power and lossy networks, to
localization, irrespective of the geometrical or imaging method support the SHM IoT system [19]. Zhang et al. proposed an
used, the key to this process is the acquired time of flight and environmental effect removal based SHM scheme in an IoT
amplitude of the response to the signal. These factors directly system. They employed Principal component analysis (PCA) to
determine the precision of the localization of the damage. The eliminate environment effects from sensor data. After

978-1-5090-0916-9/16/$31.00 ©2016 IEEE

 2016 IEEE 59th International Midwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems (MWSCAS), 16-19 October 2016, Abu Dhabi, UAE

environmental effects removal, Hilbert- Huang transformation

(HHT) was used for structural health analysis and monitoring
[20]. Both [19] and [20] attempts are simulation-based research.
Yet, there is no real implementation of SHM in the IoT. This
paper proposes a complete real-time SHM platform based on
the IoT. PZT1 PZT2
II. PROPOSED SHM TECHNIQUE
Guided wave techniques are widely used to detect damage in
structures due to its sensitivity to different changes in the
structure. Damage localization is based on determining the time Fig. 2. Mathematical model diagram
for the signal to travel from the source to the damage and
reflected back i.e. Time of Flight (TOF). There are two basic Where, is the time it takes for a wave to travel to the
active sensing techniques used to detect damage in structures; damage and reflect back. After calculating the position, the next
Pitch-catch and pulse-echo. In the pitch-catch technique, two step would be determining the damage width. First, the
PZT sensors are used; one as a transmitter and the other as a proportion of the damage position to the total length, , can
receiver. The received signal from the transmitter is used to be determined by:
determine the location and/or the extent of the damage. On the
other hand, the pulse-echo technique relies on the reflected = (3)
wave from the damage, and one PTZ sensor is used for both
transmitting and receiving the signal. A combination of Pitch- Due to damage being present, the wave takes longer to travel
catch and pulse-echo techniques is proposed to check structure from exciter to sensor, which implies the wave travels a further
health in this proposed work, and will allow for determining the distance. This distance, H, can be determined by:
damage location and size. Fig. 1 shows the proposed technique.
(4)

Where is the total time the wave takes to travel from

exciter to the sensor with the presence of the damage. From
these equations, a triangle can be made as seen in Fig. 2. is
the base and is hypotenuse of this triangle. and are
very close in value and only equal if is ½. can be
determined using the following equation:
Fig. 1. Proposed SHM technique
(5)
The proposed concept uses the combination of Pulse-echo
and Pitch-catch techniques. Pulse-echo was used to get the After is calculated, the width of the damage is determined
location of the damage whereas Pitch-catch helped us to get the from the exciter/sensor axis using the Pythagorean Theorem
size of it. The first sensor excites the signal towards the second (6).
opposing sensor, and picks up any waves that have been
reflected back from damage that could not reach the second =W (6)
sensor, which uses the pulse-echo technique. The second sensor
will receive wave feedback in a pitch-catch manner. Fig. 2 From the above mathematical model, the damage location
shows the dimensional diagram for the proposed SHM can be detected using eq. (4) and the damage width can be
technique. First, the speed of the wave must be calculated using determine using eq. (6). The proposed mathematical model
a healthy model as in (1). doesn’t require a high computational processing unit. Thus, we
will be able to implement it in the IoT platform.
/ (1)
III. PROPOSED IOT PLATFORM
Where the length from exciter to sensor, and is the time Fig. 3 shows the proposed IoT platform. It collects the data
between peak-peak. from the structure, processes the data to detect any damage, and
In order to find the damage location, LC, we are using the eq. sends the structure health to the cloud.
(2).

= (2)
 2016 IEEE 59th International Midwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems (MWSCAS), 16-19 October 2016, Abu Dhabi, UAE

Wi-Fi module: Miniature WiFi (802.11b/g/n) Module is a USB

module that has 2.4 GHz ISM band. It has a data rate up to
150Mbps (downlink) and up to 150Mbps (uplink). It uses IEEE
802.11n (draft), IEEE 802.11g, and IEEE 802.11b standards.
The Wi-Fi module will be used to send the data to the cloud.

IV. TEST AND EVALUATION

As a proof of concept, a prototype system has been
implemented to evaluate the proposed SHM IoT framework.
Fig. 3. Proposed IoT Platform Several nodes and one hub have been deployed in the lab to
monitor a steel structural sheet that has 2 PZT sensors each. The
The proposed IoT platform consists of the following node consists of a Pro-Trinket and nRF24L01+ module. The
components: primary node core used in the system is the Pro-Trinket 3V with
Piezoelectric Sensors (PZT): The PZT transducer converts an onboard Atmega329P microcontroller chip operating at
mechanical energy to electric signals, or vice versa. They can 12MHz. This microcontroller shares the data with the regional
work as an actuator to excite an elastic lamb-wave based on the hub using the nRF24L01+ transceiver chip operating on a
electrical signal applied to the PZT crystal. It can also be used worldwide license-free 2.4 GHz ISM radio frequency band.
as a sensor to transform the responding elastic lamb-waves into This nRF24L01+ module is configured to setup a star topology
an electrical signal. Two PTZs sensors are mounted on the network with the regional hub. This component was chosen due
structure. PZT1 (excitation) to send the excitation signal; PZT2 to its low peak RX/TX currents of 14 mA, and small form factor
(receiver) will receive the signal. size of 32 x 15 mm. The hub consists of a nRF24L01+ module,
Pro-Trinket: The Pro-Trinket microcontroller uses the Arduino Raspberry Pi2, and a Wi-Fi module. The nRF24L01+ module
chip ATmega328. It has an onboard USB bootloader support is used to communicate with the node and the Wi-Fi module is
with a MicroUSB. Optiboot support is also present so that Pro- used to upload the data to the cloud. The cloud components
Trinket can be programmed over USB or with an FTDI cable. were hosted on ThingWorx. ThingWorx is a technology
It uses only 3V logic and 12MHz clock. So that it is better to platform designed from the ground up for the IoT. It simplifies
use a Pro-Trinket for a lower-power and lower-voltage setup, the creation and deployment of applications for smart,
and can be programmed using the Arduino IDE. The onboard connected products by giving developers the tools they need to
power supply is a 3.3V regulator and it can provide 150mA connect, build, analyze, experience, and collaborate about their
output. There is no Serial-to-USB chip onboard. It is used to “things”. Fig. 4 shows the results on ThingWorx.
implement the proposed mathematical model. The analog PZTs
signals will be connected the analog input of the Pro-Trinket.
The Pro-Trinket will apply the mathematical model to detect
the damage.
NRF module: The nRF24L01+ module is a highly integrated
and ultra low power (ULP) 2Mbps RF transceiver for the
2.4GHz ISM (Industrial, Scientific and Medical) band. It can
be operated in three modes such as power down, standby, RX
or TX mode. NRF module’s radio has a worldwide 2.4 GHz
transceiver ISM band operation. It uses Gaussian Frequency
shift keying (GFSK) type of modulation. It will be used to
transmit the structure health from the Pro-Trinket to the hub i.e.
Raspberry pi. The hop is using another NRF module to receive
the data from the Pro-Trinket.
Raspberry Pi 2: The Raspberry Pi is a single-board computer. Fig. 4. Results on the cloud
It features a full Linux operating system with diverse
programming and connectivity options. The onboard 900 MHz In order to evaluate the proposed SHM IoT platform, a healthy
quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 CPU allows for swift computation steel sheet and another steel sheet with damage were used. The
and analysis of data obtained from several nodes and proposed platform is used to check both sheets and send the
transducers. The operating system of Raspberry pi is Linux data to the cloud. Table I shows the comparison between the
3.18.5-v7+, and has 4 processors in one chip which is CPU actual data and the data on the cloud. Results show that the
ARMv7 Processor rev 5 (v7l). It has a RAM of 1 GB. proposed SHM IoT platform successfully checked if the
Maximum clock speed 900MHz. Normally, current drawn by structure was healthy or not with 0% error. In addition, the
Raspberry Pi 2 is 200mA. The Raspberry Pi will be used to proposed platform has a maximum of 1% error for the damage
collect the structure health and push it to the cloud using Wi-Fi location and a maximum of 9% for the damage width detection.
module.
 2016 IEEE 59th International Midwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems (MWSCAS), 16-19 October 2016, Abu Dhabi, UAE

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