SENSORS | ARTICLE
Another investigator, Prof. Bill Spencer of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champagne (
www.shm.cs.illinois.edu) and his team have instrumented the Jindo Island Bridge in Korea. Here 113 nodes (reported to be the largest deployment of its type for bridge monitoring) have been deployed over the 344 meter span. Te 659 data channels are comprised of sensors including accelerometers to measure vibration in the bridges stay cables, strain gages, anemometers for wind speed and direction, temperature sensors and light level sensors. Te system was installed in 2010 and operated until 2012. Prof. Spencer stated: ”In conjunction with our colleagues at Seoul National University, we have demonstrated that we can deploy a wireless autonomous measurement solution that is robust and significantly lower in cost at approximately $100 per channel. Tis project has returned results as expected and we have been able to beter understand the wind loading algorithms and validate our models.”
New Developments
A potentially valuable solution for smart buildings currently being developed by Innoveering (
www.innoveering.net) uses accelerometers and strain gages connected to a node/access point. Te Enhanced Structural Collapse Awareness and Prediction Equipment (“Escape”) application measures the structural integrity of a building during a fire and warns first responders of the condition of the building to keep them from harm’s way. Tis program is in its early stages of hardware and algorithm development.
Professors Babak Moaveni and Usman Khan of Tuſts University are in the process of developing drone-based optical systems for the inspection of bridges. Currently, bridge inspection is conducted by engineers and maintenance personnel using visual methods. Te Tuſts researchers are exploring the instrumenting of drones with high-definition (HD) and IR camera to take pictures of the structures, store the information on the drone memory system and download the information when the drone gets back to base. Using the drone pictures to detect cracks in the structure, coupled with vibration signature analysis is expected to achieve a higher level of accurate assessment of deteriorating structures. A major advantage of this approach is that it uses a historically and highly acceptable approach to determining bridge structural deterioration: visual, which is expected to facilitate its acceptance by the maintainance community.
Conclusions
Presented have been several of the more interesting implementations of wireless autonomous sensor networks that have been in operation and demonstrated their viability over the past several years. Based on the research that I have conducted on the adoption of these IoT solutions, it becomes apparent that the funding for these projects appears to be the major barrier to their widespread adoption. With the shortalls of municipal, state and federal highway budgets, I share the opinions of several of the individuals interviewed for this article that it will be difficult to realise a successful widespread adoption of these systems. Even though many studies have established the aging nature of our roadways and bridges and their constant structural deterioration, this is not sufficient to motivate these government agencies to more fully address these problems. Tese conditions not only exist in the US, where much of our infrastructure was created in the 1950 vis-à-vis the US Federal Highway System, but also in Japan, China and Vietnam [4].
For smart buildings, again the question needs to be asked: who will pay for these smart sensor-based systems — the building owners? What motivations exist? Certainly reducing energy cost and carbon footprint are two important factors.
It is my opinion that governments must provide incentives for the adoption of these systems: for highways through additional gasoline taxes or on increased vehicle registration fees which should be based on miles driven per year. For buildings: utility companies should be willing and able to provide incentives on the reduction of energy consumption by building owners/occupants. For the adoption of the home Nest thermostat: this is a ‘no-brainer’ since individuals should be motivated to reduce their energy consumption costs and the resulting decreased carbon imprint.
Want to learn more?
Te Trillion Sensors Summit to take place in San Diego, CA, on 11–12 November 2014 will include an entire session entitled “TSensors and the Internet of Everything”. Also at the conference you will be able to see my presentation on IoT in Automotive Applications.
www.tsensorssummit.org
I will be presenting highlights of this article in a Master Class at the Printed Electronics USA Conference to take place on 18 November 2014 in Santa Clara, CA, which will feature a large number of IoT presentations during the 18–21 November 2014 timeframe:
www.idtechex.com/printed-electronics-usa.
Along with other colleagues, I will be working with MEPTEC on organising an inaugural “IoT Technologies and Applications Symposium” that will be held in San Jose, CA, on 21 May 2015, on the day following MEPTEC’s annual MEMS Technical Symposium:
www.meptec.org/iot2015.
Roger Grace is President of Roger Grace Associates of Naples Florida, a marketing consulting firm that he founded in 1982, specialising in the commercialisation of MEMS. His firm provides business development, custom market research, market strategy and integrated marketing communications services to high tech clients worldwide. He has published over 20 articles in industry publications, organised and chaired over 50 MEMS technical sessions and conferences and is frequently quoted in the technical and business press as a MEMS industry guru. He was a visiting lecturer in the School of Engineering at the University of California Berkeley from 1990 to 2003. He holds BSEE and MSEE (as a Raytheon Company Fellow) degrees from Northeastern University where he was awarded the “Engineering Alumni Engineer of the Year Award” in 2004.
References:
[1] Gartner Research, Forecast: Internet of Tings, Semiconductor Consumption,Worldwide, 2014 (Gartner Document G00269522)
[2] R. Grace, Tink Outside the Chip: MEMS-Based Systems Solutions, Commercial Micro Manufacturing, November/December 2011, pp. 12-14
[3] R. Grace, Proceedings of the Trillion Sensors Summit, Stanford University, October 2013
[4] S. Kaminaga, Proceedings of the Trillion Sensors Summit, Stanford University, October 2013
45 | commercial micro manufacturing international Vol 7 No.6
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