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Virginia Tech

Ultra Low-Power Wireless Sensor Node for Structural Health Monitoring

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) is the technology of monitoring and assessing the condition of aerospace, civil, and mechanical infrastructures using a sensing system integrated into the structure. Among variety of SHM approaches, impedance-based method is efficient for local damage detection. This thesis focuses on system level concerns for impedance-based SHM. Two essential requirements are reached in the thesis: reduction of power consumption of wireless SHM sensor, and compensation of temperature dependency on impedance. The proposed design minimizes power by employing on-board signal processing, and by eliminating power hungry components such as ADC and DAC. The prototype implemented with MSP430 micro controller is verified to be able to handle SHM operation and wireless communication with extremely low-power: 0.15 mW during the inactive mode and 18 mW during the active mode. Each SHM operation takes about 13 seconds to consume 236 mJ. When our ASN-2 operates once in every four hours, it can run for about 2.5 years with two AAA-size batteries. To compensate for temperature change, we proposed an algorithm to select a small subset of baseline profiles for some critical temperatures and to estimate the baseline profile for a given ambient temperature through interpolation. Experimental results show that our method reduces the number of baseline profiles to be stored by 45%, and estimates the baseline profile of a given temperature accurately.

Degree

thesis:*
Name thesis:degree_name
Master of Science
Level thesis:degree_level
masters
Discipline thesis:degree_discipline
Electrical and Computer Engineering
Department dc:contributor.department
Electrical and Computer Engineering
Grantor dc:publisher
Virginia Tech
Year dc:date.issued
2010

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Zhou, Dao
Chair dc:contributor.committeechair
  • Ha, Dong Sam
Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember
  • Schaumont, Patrick R.
  • Inman, Daniel J.

Subjects

dc:subject × 5

Rights

dc:rights
Statement dc:rights
  • In Copyright

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Dc Identifier Other
etd-02012010-113127
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/31103

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
Virginia Tech
Base URL
vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/oai/request
Last updated
2026-07-22
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
citation

Zhou, Dao. Ultra Low-Power Wireless Sensor Node for Structural Health Monitoring. masters thesis, Virginia Tech, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/31103