Embedded real-time damage detection and identification algorithms in wireless health monitoring system for smart structures

In this paper, a complex wireless sensing unit is designed for application in structural health monitoring systems. Fabricated from advanced embedded system technologies, the fundamental building block of the system is a wireless sensing unit capable of employing a spread-spectrum wireless modem for peer-to-peer communication between sensing units and a complex 32-bit computational core for local data interrogation in real time. The computational capabilities of the prototype structural health monitoring system design can be utilized for execution of embedded engineering analyses such as damage detection and system identification. To illustrate the computational capabilities of the system, methods for fitting auto-feedback time series models are executed as algorithms embedded in the units of the system. The research goal is that the important techniques embedment support the collaborative processing of real-time measurement data for the identification of potential damage in a structural system, and suggest strong potential for unit installation in automated structural health monitoring systems.