Intelligent structural health monitoring: a civil engineering perspective

Remote sensing systems are being developed for structural health monitoring. Requirements for such systems are presented from a civil engineering perspective. It is argued that for such systems to be effective and deployable, they need to have cheap, replaceable, durable sensors, on-site artificial intelligence and low power requirements with on-site recharging capability. The on-site intelligence needs to be able to distinguish abnormal behaviour from normal, to determine if a sensor or power source has failed, and be able to alert the responsible engineer to such occurrences. Superficial damage requiring repair is unlikely to be detected from assessment of structural parameters. Thus, more than one form of monitoring may well be required. The on-site system should be able to provide data on request. Data need to be transmitted in a reliable but cheap way, with the monitoring system aligned with the data sought and available resources.