In Situ Warning System to Provide Building Structural Health for Emergency Responders

We are developing a structure health assessment and warning system (SHAWS) supporting wireless communication and building displacement measurements. During an emergency, SHAWS measures and predicts the stability/instability of a building, determines whether it is safe for emergency responders to enter and provides individual warnings on the condition of the structure. SHAWS incorporates remote sensing nodes (RSNs) Where each RSN includes a temperature sensor, a three-axis accelerometer making static-acceleration measurements, and a ZigBee wireless system (IEEE 802.15.4). The RSNs will be deployed post-accident using an air cannon delivery system, with a total setup time of <10 min. Once the building has moved past a threshold value determined by structural analysis, a warning will be issued to emergency responders. In addition to the RSNs, SHAWS includes a base station located on an emergency responder´s primary vehicle, a PDA for mobile data display for lead responders and individual warning modules that can be worn by each responder. We will present the initial results of SHA WS development and testing.