A Design of Wireless Bridge Stress Sensor

Upon the technology for monitoring bridge healthy, wired sensor networks are commonly used in practice. However, this solution is too complicated to suit for the real application. So, this paper introduces a design method for the deliverable of a wireless sensor networks particularly for the detection and monitoring the health status of a bridge. The proposed wireless sensor module is based on the Zigbee architecture that is composed by a resistance strain gauge for detecting and collecting stress strain signal, a regulation circuit for signal regulation, and an analogue-to-digital converter (A/D) for the conversion from analogue to digital. The design can realize a complete wireless transmission for sensor signal borne with health information of a bridge. The advantage of the design is the simplicity in implementing engineering, the flexibility in expanding networks and the efficiency in consuming power. The Zigbee format enable the wireless sensor achieve the maximum distance up to 100 meters, and the wireless strain sensor not only solve the wiring problems, but also reducing the costs of wiring a networks.