| EPSRC Reference: |
EP/D076838/1, |
| Title: |
Smart Infrastructure: Wireless sensor network system for condition assessment and monitoring of infrastructure |
| Principal Investigator: |
hlPrincipalInvestigator |
| Other Investigators: |
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| Researcher Co-investigators: |
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| Project Partners: |
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| Department: |
Civil & Environmental Engineering |
| Organisation: |
Imperial College London |
| Scheme: |
Standard Research |
| Starts: |
01 November 2006 |
Ends: |
30 April 2010 |
Value (£): |
740,460
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| EPSRC Research Topic Classifications: |
| Information and communication technologies: Mobile Computing |
Management and business studies: Building Operation and Management |
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| EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications: |
| Communications |
Construction |
| Transport Systems and Vehicles |
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| Related Grants: |
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| Panel History: |
| Panel Date | Panel Name | Outcome |
|
06 Mar 2006
|
WINES 2 Full Proposals
|
Announced
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Summary |
One of the greatest challenges facing civil engineers in the 21st century is the stewardship of ageing infrastructure. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the networks of tunnels, pipelines and bridges that lie beneath and above the major cities around the world. Much of this infrastructure was constructed more than half a century ago and there is widespread evidence of its deterioration. Tunnels, particularly old ones, are prone to being influenced by activities such as adjacent construction, for instance piling, deep excavations and other tunnel construction. Excessive leakage and pipe bursts are frequent and usually unanticipated. Importantly, underground structures often cannot be inspected when they are being used by trains or due to other physical constraints. The fragility of old infrastructure also presents a challenge for new construction in congested urban environments. Little is known of the long-term performance of such infrastructure. These uncertainties and the importance of safety to users and consumers prompted the initiation of recent research projects investigating the prospect of damage detection and decision making and the use of novel materials to mitigate damage. Advances in the development of innovative sensors such as fibre optic sensors and micro electrical mechanical sensors (MEMS) offer intriguing possibilities that can radically alter the paradigms underlying existing methods of condition assessment and monitoring. Future monitoring systems will undoubtedly comprise Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) and will be designed around the capabilities of autonomous nodes. Each node in the network will integrate specific sensing capabilities with communication, data processing and power supply. It is therefore the objective of this proposal to demonstrate how large numbers of sensors can be integrated into large-scale engineering systems to improve performance and extend the lifetime of infrastructure, while continuously evaluating and managing uncertainties and risks. This proposal is a joint project between the University of Cambridge and Imperial College London and comprises an integrated research program to evaluate and develop prototype WSN systems. The main objectives of this proposal are to bridge advances in modelling large-scale engineering infrastructure with advances in wireless sensor networks and to develop a low-cost smart sensing environment for monitoring ageing public infrastructure. Three application domains will be studied in detail: (i) monitoring water supply and sewer systems and (ii) monitoring tunnels and (iii) monitoring bridges. The complexity of the monitoring system requires the following research areas to be explored : sensor systems, wireless communications, autonomous systems, information management, programming and design tools, trust security and privacy, systems theory, human factors and social issues. Field trials will be carried out with London Underground Ltd., Thames Water, Highways Agency and Humber Bridge. Intel Corporation will support the project with hardware for the trials.
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| Final Report Summary |
One of the greatest challenges facing civil engineers in the 21st century is the stewardship of ageing infrastructure. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the networks of tunnels, pipelines and bridges that lie beneath and above the major cities around the world. Much of this infrastructure was constructed more than half a century ago and there is widespread evidence of its deterioration. Little is known of the long-term performance of such infrastructure. The fragility of old infrastructure also presents a challenge for new construction in congested urban environments.
In this project, prototype wireless sensor network systems coupled with advances in miniaturized sensors such as micro electrical mechanical sensors were developed and deployed in real field sites to evaluate their potentials to offer intriguing possibilities that can radically alter the paradigms underlying existing methods of condition assessment and monitoring. The project between the University of Cambridge and Imperial College London comprised an interdisciplinary research team to investigate such potentials. In the first stage, the prototype WSN systems were deployed in different infrastructure types. The deployed sites included London Underground Tunnel, Humber Bridge and Thames Water's water supply system. In the second stage, a large scale WSN system (more than 100 WSN motes) was installed at the Hammersmith Flyover and Station site in order to investigate the upscaling issues of the prototype WSNs. The project demonstrated how large numbers of sensors can be integrated into large-scale engineering systems to improve performance and extend the lifetime of infrastructure, while continuously evaluating and managing uncertainties and risks. The field demonstrations provided opportunities to develop generic monitoring strategy among different infrastructure types in close co-operation with the industry partners. This includes identification of key parameters that can provide information of direct benefit to managers, selection of specific low cost sensors applicable to parameters required and determination of sample frequency for each sensor.
The complexity of WSN systems in real environment required research in the following areas: sensor systems, wireless communications, autonomous systems, information management, programming and design tools, trust security and privacy. Existing off-the-sheIf WSN solutions provide limited options in terms of communication, sensor interface and programmability. Application specific sensing solutions were developed by integrating advances and knowledge in embedded hardware and software design. The development allowed us to successfully cover both high-frequency-high duty cycle applications and low-frequency-Iow-duty cycle applications. The field deployments highlighted the uncertainty in wireless communication. New propagation models and a WSN deployment tool were developed so that a more reliable WSN can be established in a given time available during the engineering hours of infrastructure maintenance. An aIgorithm to evaluate the location of sensor motes was developed for the underground environment where GPS is not available. Several communication protocols were also developed for better data communication and decision making. They include (i) quick construction of a data aggregation tree in a duty-cycled network, (ii) a reliable TDMA schedule for data aggregation and (iii) an energy efficient TDMA schedule for uncompressed traffic. In collaboration with infrastructure owners, likely threats, vulnerabilities and attacks on WSN were identified and security policies and security targets were developed. A set of security codes were developed for the prototype WSNs.
A journal paper summarizing the outcome of the project appeared in the Proceedings of the ICE-Civil Engineering and won the 2009 Telford Gold Medal, which is the highest prize awarded by the Institution of Civil Engineers for a paper.
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| Further Information: |
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| Organisation Website: |
http://www.ic.ac.uk |