Structural Health Monitoring Systems for Detection of Permanent Damage

Deployment of structural health monitoring systems for permanent damage detection is limited by the availability of sensor technology.  The DSP based prototype displayed in the small box is an initial effort in realizing a fully self-contained active sensor system utilizing impedance-based structural health monitoring.  The active sensing system interrogates a structure utilizing a self-sensing actuator and the low cost impedance method, and all the data processing, storage, and analysis is performed at the sensor location.  A wireless transmitter is used to communicate the current status of the structure.  With this new low cost, field deployable impedance analyzer, reliance on traditional expensive, bulky, and power consuming impedance analyzers (a HP 4194A Impedance analyzer is shown) is no longer necessary.

Return to Current Projects