Real-time environmental emission monitoring on construction sites

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in wireless sensor networks for monitoring systems within the civil and structural engineering community. There has been not only research on wireless sensor networks for monitoring structural performance and health, but also on localization of building materials and construction machinery. Furthermore, wireless sensor networks are due to their potential of reducing wiring cost also recently investigated for monitoring disturbing emissions like air pollution, noise and hazardous ground vibrations. We propose a wireless sensor network system enabling long term and real-time monitoring of environmental parameters, to detect emissions on a construction site and ensure the compliance of maximum permissible values in real-time. In this novel approach we combine various sensors measuring specific environmental parameters (dust, noise, vibration, position, timestamps), a data acquisition unit, and a radio unit to directly transfer information to a data sink. We conclude that the proposed system offers great possibilities for future deployments at low cost.