World Applied Sciences Journal 20 (4): 585-590, 2012

ISSN 1818-4952
IDOSI Publications, 2012
DOI: 10.5829/idosi.wasj.2012.20.04.2759

Recent Application of Structural Civil Health

Monitoring Using WSN and FBG
M.E. Haque, M.F.M. Zain, M.A. Hannan, M. Jamil and Hujairi Johari
Electrical, Electronics and System Engineering,
Civil Engineering, University Kebangsaan Malaysia
Abstract: The objective of this paper is to provide a contemporary look at the current state-of-the-art in wireless
sensor and fiber optic sensor for structure health monitoring (SHM) applications and discuss issue related to
those system and hence, to make the efficient decision that provided the better system thinking. Specially, this
paper provides review about structural health monitoring like, bridges, pipelines etc. using WSN and fiber optic
sensor. This paper presents a comprehensive review of wireless sensor and fiber optic sensor for SHM and
challenging issue related to the structural health monitoring. It also introduces research challenges and
potential applications of the WSN.
Key words: Structural health monitoring
NDE FGB

Wireless sensor network

INTRODUCTION

Synchronization

The general purpose of structural health

monitoring (SHM) includes hazard mitigation,
improvement of safety and reliability of the structural
system, sustainability and life cycle cost reduction.
In general, the structural monitoring technology
consists of sensing, signal processing, health/damage
assessment and system integration [3]. Traditionally,
the data acquisition system of the SHM is wired
based, which can acquire sensor data periodically.
These systems measure structural behavior and assess
structural safety circumstances using various types of
sensing device certain damage diagnosis and prognosis
method [4, 5].
Structural Health Monitoring System is used in the
structure for public safety and to detect structural
damage and reduce economical cost. There are two
techniques for measuring damage detection of
structural health, namely Local and Global. Local
techniques detect small defect like micro-crack of the
structure, while global techniques detect significant
damages which lead to change integrity of the entire
structure. Most of the measuring technique is local and
few of the Global [6].

The damage of civil infrastructural health occurs

enormously due to catastrophic events like earthquake,
flooding and terrorist attacks. In addition to these events,
the structure could undergo gradual deterioration over its
life span due to corrosion, fatigue, vibration etc. Given the
increasing age of many structures, low-cost structure
monitoring systems are required to take necessary
precautions accordingly. Most of the structure monitoring
methods includes visual checks, which can only identify
damages visible on the structure surface. To detect the
problems timely and take necessary actions accordingly,
there is an urgent need for reliable structure monitoring
systems that can automatically and quantitatively analyze
the real-time condition of structures [1]. The process of
implementing a damage identification strategy for
aerospace, civil and mechanical infrastructure is referred
to as structural health monitoring (SHM). Here, damage is
defined as changes to the material and/or geometric
properties of these systems, including changes to the
boundary conditions and system connectivity, which
adversely affect the overall systems performance [2].
Corresponding Author:

Structural health

Md. Ershadul Haque, Department of Electrical, Electronics and System Engineering,

Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), Malaysia.
Tel: +60105205503.

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World Appl. Sci. J., 20 (4): 585-590, 2012

Non-destructive evaluation (NDE) technology is to

use visual inspection of highway bridges damage.
When normal visual inspection is unable to measure the
damage then new NDE technologies are used to solve
difficult inspection challenges those beyond the
capability of normal visual inspections. NDE describe the
reliability of both routine and in-depth inspection
practices and its support three types of structure: the
superstructure, substructure and deck. The reliability and
accuracy and identifies factors of NDE method that may
influence the inspection results and determines some of
the procedural differences that exist between various
State inspection programs [7].
Laser-based NDE method measure the distance for
highway infrastructure. Some damage location due to
corrosion, deterioration, vibration, tilt etc. cannot by these
methods and often time consuming and expensive and
access is not always possible. The system is capable of
measuring over a range of 30 meters with sub-millimeter
accuracy [8]. Since, Non-destructive evaluation (NDE) is
often time consuming and expensive and access is not
always possible [9]. Therefore, Local and global health
NDE technique are necessary for monitoring
infrastructure damage and several NDE technique are
discussed in the article [10]. In every year, current federal
spending in the US forreplacement of structurally
obsolete bridges basedon these NDE methods is
approximately $10billion [11]. In general, a typical SHM
system includes three major components: a sensor
system, a data processing system (including data
acquisition, transmission and storage) and a health
evaluation system (including diagnostic algorithms and
information management) [9]. The conventional SHM
monitoring system uses cables for data communication.
The installation of data cables with sensor increase cost
and difficult to installation, maintenance and repair.
The cable based sensor has following disadvantages:

phase mask method. The advantages of the fiber optic

sensor multiplexing the large number of sensors along a
single fiber, small size and light weight comparing to the
wired system. The advantage of the Holographic method:
it is easy to adjust the angle between two beams to create
different periods. The disadvantage of this method is that
a more stable setup is needed and a good coherence light
source is also requested in the meantime. The advantage
of the mask method is simple great repeatability but the
disadvantages of the method only one wavelength can
generate of FBG [12]. Some general drawbacks of the
optical fiber are:
Bending angle not more than 90, otherwise its
fragility.
Need encapsulate (packet) when installed in the
practical field.
High cost and perfect installation in critical situation
sometimes so difficult.
Network structure is being more complex if the civil
infrastructure is large.
More bending angle of the optical fiber more signal
loss occurs.
Structural Health Monitoring System diagnosis the
damage of the structure in advance before the entry
system damage. Now a days, wireless sensor network
become more popular technique to detect the damage like
temperature, measurement, crack detection and define its
location with thickness, vibration measurement, tilt
measurement, deterioration measurement, Corrosion
measurement, acceleration measurement, are widely use
because its low power profile, low complexity and reliable
for transmission than other system. With the recent
advances in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) and microelectro-mechanical-systems (MEMS) technology, the cost
of the structural health monitoring system is scale down
[13-15].

More Cable required for installation and difficult

installation in the pipe line.
Sensor data distorted if the cable is damage due to
temperature high or any other causes.
Noise elimination difficult because cable connection.

Theoretical Approach: There are different kinds of

wireless sensor network already developed to measure
structural health monitoring damages [16]. Smart wireless
sensor network based on radar sensor for monitoring
displacement of the bridge structure is provided in [17].
In [17] the interferometer radar sensor network, the 2.4GHz
single tone base-band signal come from voltage
controlled oscillator (VCO) divided into two parts by
balun, one part of the signal is amplified and transmit out
through the transmitter. Another part of the signal goes

In recent years, FBG (Fiber Bragg Grating) has been

accepted as a new kind of sensing element for
structural health monitoring (SHM) in civil infrastructures.
The optical fiber sensor based on FBG (Fiber Bragg
Grating) are two types of method holographic method and
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World Appl. Sci. J., 20 (4): 585-590, 2012

to the demodulator. The receiver received the transmitted

signal with vibration information. The received signal is
amplified, filtered and feed into the quadrature direct
conversion demodulator which mixed the received
signal with another output signal come from balun.
After demodulation the baseband signal have two
component one is In-phase component and Quadrature
component. Two components of the signal feed as input
of the analog to digital converter (ADC). The output of
the ADC interface with ZigBee IEEE 802.15.4 through
microcontroller. The radar sensor act as an end device
when connect with ZigBee mesh network which is
integrated with themicrocontroller. To cover the large
area service area, the whole network is divided into
sub-network and each router connected with several
sensor. If any sensor needed to be add, than just add new
subnet IP by verification existing sensor ID(M.XBee).
Three types of modulation scheme are available in [17]
first one is arctangent demodulation, second one
nonlinear demodulation [18] and small angle
approximation is third one [19]. It should be noted that
sensor must not be placed on ground or reflection plate
due to motion have component may cancel each otherand
accuracy of this system is 1 millimeter.
A complete wireless sensor system for structural
health identification under three different environmental
loads is designed, implemented, deployed and tested [20].
In this system, spatial jitter to reduce and precision is
increased without adding complexity and also scalable to
a large number of nodes to allow for dense sensor
coverage of real-world structures but its limited by a
define measurement length and mandatory time to obtain
the final result. A small synchronization error between
devices means that the proper mode shapes could not
obtained from reality or theoretical calculations of
structure is not possible. Without considering this
fundamental error, the accuracy of the wireless
is degraded due to noise made by the sensors
[21, 22]. Frequency decomposition is one of the most
widespread method to obtain mode shapes of the
structures. The precision in synchronization are directly
linked to the correct result and slight delay in the output
response has a strong impact on the mode shapes,
particularly for high-order modes [22]. The effect of
time-synchronization error on SHM applications [23] and
how synchronization errors affect the process of
obtaining mode shapes and why the synchronization error
should be below 1 ms in order to get valid data [24].
After that, some systems are used to minimize

synchronization error where each sensor send reference

beacon to their neighbors such as RBS [23] FTSP [25],
TSPN [26]. Another method to reduce synchronization
error using GPS receiver which synchronize the hardware
clock with a resolution of within 100 ns but the system
consume large, hence cost of the overall system is too
high [27]. ZigBee radio protocol is one of the most
widespread wireless systems for monitoring structural
health because of its low power consumption and high
performance in communication and configurability.
Although, ZigBee has many advantages, but one of the
technical limitation of its transmission bandwidth and data
rate, communication range. Those above systems
provide good synchronization, but SHM needs to
increase time accuracy in order to obtain accurate results.
During sampling process for wireless communication
some information of the original signal is lost and
measurement duration limitation do not allow for a reliable
system. To solve this problem, reduce the number of node
of the systems which lead to reduce overall system
performance. Piezoelectric sensors are used for high
precision which implies that their signal should be
acquired with high-resolution analog-to-digital converters
(ADCs). The minimum synchronization error between two
boxes has to be less than 120 s and the main problem in
synchronization is stack layer overhead [20]. Packets are
sent via Wi-Fi and Zigbee radio interface is dedicated
only to synchronization and Wi-Fi networks are protected
by two systems WEP and WPA. Three different tests:
firstly, synchronization module is checked in the lab,
secondly, an operational modal analysis (OMA) is carried
out on a real structure and finally, the signals
corresponding to two accelerometers, placed on the
structure at the same location [20].
On site testbed wireless sensor network explore
different sensing, networking and distributed computing
approaches in real application.Depending on bridge
characteristics such as age, materials and design, as well
as vehicle traffic, each bridge has a fixed schedule of
on-site test usiing strain gauges and/or displacement
sensors [28]. During test, a known load is driven on the
bridge and and the response of the sensors is stored on
data-loggers at that time the bridge is either closed down
to traffic, or traffic is impeded by the slow passes of the
heavy test truck [28]. A 64-node WSN has been
developed in the Golden Gate Bridge at San Francisco for
monitoring ambient vibrations [29]. On the other hand, a
20-node WSN were implimented in Potsdam, NY, based on
strain gauges and accelerometers sensor [30]. Both 64 and
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20-node base WSN were short term development not long

term. Two types design are done: first one design based
on classical balanced Wheatstone bridge and an
instrumental amplifier but some problem are found
among those amplifier noise, power supply fluctuation.
The second one is packaged base using two strain gauge
with larger USB connector and able to sense up to 33V
external DC voltage [28].
An integrated method is approach to the Design of
Wireless Sensor Networks for Structural Health
Monitoring based on buildings characterization and
monitoring basically vibration base analysis [31].
Structures behavior and expected structural response
could be exploited in the design of a monitoring network
and the performance of the distributed could increase by
improving energy efficiency [31].
Modal analysis is the traditional approach for
measurement structural health response and natural
frequencies, mode shapes and damping ratios consider as
a measurement parameter. The problem of modal analysis
its high system cost, footprint and small measuring time
and did not count white Gaussian noise. But, its
advantages that no need to use any controlled solicitation
equipment and it is possible to characterize the structure
under its normal operating conditions [31]. Various
techniques have been developed for modal structural
identification recently and these include:

condition information of the structure and any data

missing became error result in the analysis. During signal
processing method, sampling frequency and time
synchronization other parameter related to signal
processing must be specified accurately. To continue
error free analysis, lossless data transmission that means
must not be packet/symbol/bit error occur.
Reliability and Scalability: It seems that wireless
communication could be unreliable because use a share
transmission media and information error is also
calculated on probability base. An increases transmission
node in the network which leads collision and packet loss,
so unknown errors occur with analyzing the result due to
lack of reliability.
To cover the large geographical civil infrastructure
scalability of the wireless sensor network is most
important issue. Scalability of the WSN provides
adjustment flexibility with infrastructure for monitoring
structural health by adding new transmission node in the
network and also defines higher precision of damage
detection. Sensor coverage area which define complexity
of the scalability to cover the whole services area.
Real-time Response and Lifetime of the Overall:
The measurement of the overall system should be real
time response after sampled. Efficient design of the fault
management solution of the wireless sensor network is an
another important challenge based on real time
environment [41]. Every system is defined by real time
response. Data reach with respective node may be delay
occurs beyond define real time. The faster real time
system response may provide more accurate data and
system provides correct decision to make result.
The lifetime of the overall monitoring system should
be increase then overall system cost is going down and
limited maintenance will be require and system become
powerfully efficient.

Time domain techniques, such as ITD (Ibrahim Time

Domain [32], Next (Natural Excitation Technique) and
SSI (Stochastic Subspace Identification) [33];
frequency domain techniques, such as FDD
(Frequency
Domain
Decomposition
[34],
Subsequently improved as EFDD, Enhanced
Frequency Domain Decomposition [35];
Time-frequency methods, such as those based on
analysis of wavelet transforms [36], Cohens class
transforms [37] and recently EMD (Empirical Mode
Decomposition) [38], mode shape base method
(MSBM) [39].

CONCLUSION

Issue Related To WSN: Depending on the application

scenario and specific structure, issues related to WSN for
Monitoring Structural Health systems may impose
different requirements. The following issue base on the
building structure [20, 40].

This paper presents a review of recent research and

development activities in SHM of civil structures and
discusses several technique that evaluate structural
damage and issue related to the WSN. Traditionally, wired
system is used for collecting sensor data periodically but
this system has several disadvantages.The mainissues of
WSN are the scalability, accuracy, reliability and data
precision. On the other hand, cable based sensor system
and fiber optic sensor requires more cable and the overall

Quality of Data: Data is the essential evidence which

provide information about structural health condition.
Quality of data is more important because it carries health
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World Appl. Sci. J., 20 (4): 585-590, 2012

system cost is going high. Due to technology

advancement MEMS provided low cost sensing device
from previous but, it has several dis-advantages like low
data rate, transmission rage, sensor coverage area etc.

9.

10.

Further Recommendation: We will try to develop the new

protocol that provide higher transmission rate with low
cost and large scale communication with better reliability,
accuracy and scalability also.

11.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

12.

WISUDA Sdn. Bhd.gratefully acknowledges for

supporting this Research Program.
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