An Integrated Sensing/Communication Architecture for Structural Health Monitoring

In this paper, a novel sensor network architecture for structural health monitoring is presented. The system is based on the adoption of purposely developed contactless sensors that make use of near-field coupling to both sense the structure displacements and deploy a local communication network. The key features of the adopted technology are the low-realization costs and the lower power consumption that nodes feature as compared to traditional wireless communication. In addition, the use of a fully decentralized positioning algorithm, running on each node, is demonstrated as a viable mean for the local mapping of extended structures, thus crediting the architecture for the evaluation of structural in-plane deformations.