Recent enhancements to the SmartBrick structural health monitoring platform

This paper introduces several new developments in the SmartBrick structural health monitoring platform. The system, which has been described in previous papers, provides an extremely low-power, long-term method for remote structural health monitoring. The system is capable of monitoring a diverse range of environmental and structural phenomena, including strain, vibration, tilt, and temperature; and communicating the collected data and any alerts over the GSM cellular infrastructure. The system is completely autonomous and wireless, requiring only its self-contained power and GSM network coverage to operate unattended for five or more years. The emphasis of this paper is on advances made in the third generation of the SmartBrick platform. Highlights include the development of a Web interface that facilitates retrieval and visualization of data and remote maintenance and calibration of the system, and additional enhancements made to support dynamic structural monitoring. The paper also includes a survey of recent wireless SHM systems, and a comparison of these solutions with the SmartBrick platform.