A framework for intelligent sensor network with video camera for structural health monitoring of bridges

Wireless sensor network (WSN) gives the characteristics of an effective, feasible and fairly reliable monitoring system which shows promise for structural health monitoring (SHM) applications. Monitoring of civil structures generates a large amount of sensor data that is used for structural anomaly detection. Efficiently dealing with this large amount of data in a resource-constrained WSN is a challenge. This paper proposes a, WSN based, novel framework that triggers smart events from sensor data. These events are useful for both intelligent data recording and video camera control. The operation of this framework consists of active & passive sensing modes. In passive mode, selected nodes can intelligently interpret local sensor data to trigger appropriate events. In active mode, most of the sensing nodes perform high frequency sampling and record useful data. Unnecessary data is suppressed which improves the lifespan of the network and simplifies data management.