ITR: Structural Health Monitoring Using Local Excitation and Large-Scale Networked Sensing

结构健康监测(SHM)是一个高度跨学科的研究领域，致力于开发检测建筑物、桥梁、飞机、船舶和航天器等结构损伤的技术。到目前为止，大多数结构健康监测研究要么集中在使用低分辨率测量结构对环境激励的响应的全局损伤评估技术上，要么集中在有限的局部独立损伤检测机制上。该建议倡导结构健康监测的范式转变，使用分散的局部激励和对这些激励的高分辨率响应测量，通过空间密集的无线设备网络来检测和协作分析。这一转变承诺了更简单和更准确的技术来识别甚至定位结构内的损伤。拟议的研究的目标是设计一种用于结构健康监测的具有分布式驱动和传感的网络计算机系统。术语“联网的SHM”表示这项研究将启用的监测系统的类别。通过将局部激励与高分辨率传感相结合，网络化的SHM与当今正在研究的其他传感器网络应用截然不同。例如，联网的SHM有望在未来使用混凝土建造建筑物，其中混合了数万个嵌入式传感器设备以及低功率本地激励器。传感器网络将能够持续监测结构，触发警报以识别损坏开始，精确定位损坏位置，并提供施加在建筑物上的环境压力的长期历史。

Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) is a highly interdisciplinary area of research focused on developing techniques to detect damage in structures such as buildings, bridges, aircraft, ships and spacecraft. Most SHM research to date has focused either on global damage assessment techniques using low-resolution measurements of a structure's response to ambient excitation, or on limited local independent damage detection mechanisms.This proposal advocates a paradigm shift in SHM, using decentralized local excitation and high-resolution measurements of response to these excitations, detected and collaboratively analyzed through a spatiallydense wireless network of devices. This shift promises simpler and more accurate techniques to identify and even localize damage within the structure.The goal of the proposed research is the design of a networked computer system, with distributed actuation and sensing, for SHM. The term "networked SHM" denotes the class of monitoring systems that willbe enabled by this research. By combining local excitation with high-resolution sensing, networked SHM is quite distinct from other sensor network applications being examined today. Networked SHM promises a future where, for example, buildings are constructed using concrete mixed with several tens of thousands of embedded sensor devices as well as low-power local exciters. The network of sensors will be able to continuously monitor the structure, trigger alarms that identify the onset of damage, precisely pinpoint the location of damage and also provide a long-term history of ambient stresses imposed on the building.