Computer-Aided Civil and Infrastructure Engineering 28 (2013) 193–209
A Wireless Sensor Network-Based Structural Health
Monitoring System for Highway Bridges
Xiaoya Hu∗ & Bingwen Wang
Department of Control Science and Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074,
China
&
Han Ji
School of Civil Engineering and Mechanics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China
Abstract: An integrated structural health monitoring
(SHM) system for highway bridges is presented. The
system is based on a customized wireless sensor network
platform with a flexible design that provides a variety
of sensors typical in SHM. These sensors include ac-
celerometers, strain gauges, and temperature sensors
with ultra-low power consumption. An S-Mote node, an
acceleration sensor board, and a strain sensor board are
developed to satisfy the requirements of bridge structural
monitoring. Communication software components are
integrated within TinyOS operating system to provide a
flexible software platform whereas the data processing
software performs analysis of acceleration, dynamic
displacement, and dynamic strain data. The prototype
system comprises a nearly linear multi-hop topology
and is deployed on an in-service highway bridge. Data
acquired from the system are used to examine network
performance and to help evaluate the state of the bridge.
Experimental results show that the system enables
continuous or regular interval monitoring for in-service
highway bridges.
1 INTRODUCTION
Structural health monitoring (SHM) has become an
increasingly important technology to determine the
static and dynamic responses of civil infrastructure
∗ To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: huxy@mail.
hust.edu.cn.

C 2012 Computer-Aided Civil and Infrastructure Engineering.
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8667.2012.00781.x
to environmental conditions or vehicle loads during
construction or while in service. By calculating, com-
paring, and analyzing these responses, SHM can serve
as an emergency alert system and can provide safety
assessment for maintenance decisions and structural
damage identification, among other purposes (Ou,
2003; Lynch and Loh, 2006). From the perspective of
structural state monitoring, the general approaches to
bridge SHM are load rating, experimental monitoring
or random loading, regular interval monitoring. The
former provides operational load ratings that quantify
the load-carrying capacity of in-service bridges, and it
enables the assessment of the quasi-static responses of
these bridges. However, load ratings require temporary
closure of bridges and procedural loading with the
use of vehicles with known weights. This approach is
limited by the periodic, schedule-based, and high-cost
nature of the application. Furthermore, load ratings
reflect only a particular state under a given condition,
and data do not have the desired statistical proper-
ties. These attributes contribute to difficulty in the
assessment of actual bridge characteristics. Therefore,
a continuous monitoring system is needed to determine
structural conditions accurately. The latest continuous
and random load approach involves the use of sensor
networks based on embedded optical sensors hardwired
into a data acquisition system. This method can conduct
continuous structural monitoring of in-service bridges
under random loads for long periods. However, it
suffers from several drawbacks, including (1) inappli-
cability to old bridges because of the requirement for
194 Hu, Wang & Ji
pre-embedded sensors, (2) high installation costs, and
(3) delicate optical sensors that are easily damaged
during construction.
Advancements in wireless sensor network (WSN)
technology (Akyidiz et al., 2002) in the past decade
have provided opportunities for continuous moni-
toring in bridge SHM applications. Compared with
cable-based sensor networks, WSNs provide wireless
continuous monitoring at a considerably lower cost.
WSNs also facilitate simple yet convenient deployment
and monitoring. However, data transmission based on
WSN technology has several limitations, including long-
distance transmission, limited transmission bandwidth,
and limited power supply. To address these issues,
recent studies (see Section 2) have generally used one
of two approaches: one-hop network topology with
short transmission or multi-hop topology transmission
of sensor data. In a one-hop monitoring system, real-
time transmission is relatively simple. However, most
long-span bridges require multi-hop communication,
as the distance of these bridges exceeds the broadcast
domain of one hop. For large-scale bridges that require
in-service assessment, multi-hop topology may be
essentially used in WSN for SHM. Due to the limited
capacity of battery power supplies, power efficiency
is also an important consideration to satisfy the re-
quirements of bridge SHM and thus extend system
lifetime.
Using WSN technology, we develop an integrated
bridge health monitoring system based on a customized,
multi-hop, low-power platform. This system can be
applied to continuous or regular interval monitoring
under random loads. The major contributions of this
work to WSN applications for SHM are as follows:
1. A customized monitoring platform with a tailored
S-Mote, an acceleration sensor board, and a strain
sensor board is developed. The flexible and scal-
able system architecture enables the system to sup-
port a wide array of sensing tasks for SHM.
2. Combination of data analysis software and data
collection platform in the integrated bridge mon-
itoring system is presented for continuous mon-
itoring, in which all kinds of dynamic response
parameters (including vibration acceleration, dy-
namic displacement, and dynamic strain) can be
determined and analyzed.
3. Instead of simulations in a laboratory testbed,
testing with deployment under complex condi-
tions is conducted on an in-service highway bridge.
The test may provide experiential knowledge on
solving problems in the practical application of
WSNs.
2 RELATED WORK
Ou (2003) summarized the contents and functions of an
SHM system. The SHM system for civil infrastructures
typically includes data acquisition, transmission, and
processing units, as well as data management systems.
Damage detection and decision making are performed
regularly with the use of data measured by an SHM
system. Since the early 1980s, extensive research has
been devoted to damage identification methods for
structures. These methods can be grouped into two cat-
egories according to whether the studied performance
index has static or dynamic parameters. Static index
method (Garcia et al., 2008; Caddemi and Morassi,
2007) identifies damage based on static displacement
or static curvature. Significant findings have also been
obtained through dynamic index method (Carden
and Brownjohn, 2008; Soyoz and Feng, 2009). These
damage assessment methods commonly use modal
parameters, such as natural frequency, damping ratio,
and mode shape curvature, to construct damage iden-
tification models. Various computational tools, such as
wavelet analysis (Pakrashi et al., 2007; Jiang et al., 2007;
Umesha et al., 2009), neural networks (Jiang and Adeli,
2005, 2007), fuzzy logic (Adeli and Jiang, 2006), and
genetic algorithms (Marano et al., 2011), are also often
introduced to improve damage detection accuracy.
Dynamic fuzzy wavelet neural network approaches
for damage detection and control algorithms have also
been developed (Jiang and Adeli, 2008a, b). Park et al.
(2007) presented a novel approach, that is, the use of
terrestrial laser scanning for SHM. Ceriotti et al. (2009)
presented a hardware/software solution to monitor
Torre Aquila, in which the hardware core is based
on TMote-like devices, and the software is based on
TeenyLIME, a WSN middleware.
Damage detection and identification technology can
evaluate structure safety and recommend repairs in ad-
vance. However, the accuracy and the reliability of dam-
age identification largely depend on the time histories
data gathered by the SHM system. To reduce the cost
of installation and monitoring, researchers are working
to develop novel methods of data acquisition in a non-
destructive manner. Several WSN systems have been
proposed for bridge SHM. Xu et al. (2004) discussed a
WSN system to collect data on structural vibration. The
authors presented reliable data transport over a multi-
hop network based on Mica2 motes, but the system
was tested only in a small-scale indoor testbed. Ruiz-
Sandoval et al. (2006) developed an acceleration board
and a strain board using Mica motes for communication
and control, but the system relies on one-hop wireless
communication, which is not scalable to large structures.
 A wireless sensor network-based SHM system for highway bridges
Furthermore, the system was not tested under harsh
environmental conditions. Lynch et al. (2005) deployed
14 wireless sensors to monitor the forced acceleration
responses of Geundang Bridge in Korea. However,
their system is also of single-hop network type. Pakzad
et al. (2005, 2008), Kim (2005), and Kim et al. (2007)
proposed a 46-hop WSN, which can measure ambient
vibrations. They developed an acceleration board based
on a MicaZ mote with abundant on-chip peripherals.
Although these studies reflect significant progress in the
development of WSNs for SHM, the systems proposed
rely on a series of commercial Mica motes. With the
relatively high power consumption and the restricted
sensor interface of Mica motes, these motes are re-
stricted to continuous monitoring application for bridge
SHM, in which power consumption is a crucial issue.
Whelan and Janoyan (2009, 2010) recently addressed
strain- and vibration-based low-power monitoring by a
WSN. The authors described a customized data acquisi-
tion platform (called WSS) based on Tmote Sky Mote,
which conducts strain- and vibration-based monitoring
through a switch. Whelan et al. (2009, 2011) deployed
WSS on RT345 Bridge over Big Sucker Brook and used
vibration measurements for operational modal analysis.
Gangone et al. (2011) discussed the load testing and
the rating of a simply supported bridge, in which WSS
from strain measurements was deployed. This approach
can provide complete information for SHM. However,
the large-scale bridge communication issue in bridge
SHM could not be addressed because the system relies
on single-hop, star-topology wireless communication
between sensors and base stations. Bocca et al. (2009,
2011a,b) introduced a time-synchronized WSN and a
WSN with embedded Goertzel algorithm to process ac-
celeration data locally and in real time, respectively. In
their work, the network is based on ISMO-2 nodes and
organized into a star topology to enable accelerometer
measurements in a wooden model bridge. Similarly,
the single-hop topology of their system could not
satisfy the requirements of large-scale bridge structural
monitoring.
By contrast, this study presents an integrated bridge
health monitoring system based on a customized WSN
platform. The platform is suitable for monitoring static
and dynamic structural response parameters (including
vibration acceleration, dynamic displacement, and dy-
namic strain) under random loads and is thus capable of
continuous monitoring. The designed S-Mote improves
flexibility in connecting different sensor boards or in of-
fering communication functions. The platform can col-
lect all kinds of sensor signals, such as acceleration, tem-
perature, and strain signals. The radio power required
for single-hop communication in a large network topol-
ogy is impractical, but network communication in the
195
proposed system addresses this problem with the use of
multi-hops, which are essential for scalable deployment.
3 CUSTOMIZED MONITORING PLATFORM
Five major prerequisites for WSN platforms exist in
bridge health monitoring applications. These require-
ments are as follows:
1. Physical quantities such as acceleration, temper-
ature, and strain should be collected. Therefore,
different types of sensor boards that supply mul-
tiple sensor interfaces are essential platform com-
ponents.
2. The measurement of ambient vibrations caused
by wind and traffic requires a sufficiently sensi-
tive accelerometer range. This requirement entails
an acceleration sensor board that can detect weak
vibration signals with peak amplitudes as low as
2 mg. The board should have a low-noise design
and should take noise-reducing measurements for
weak signal sampling and analog-to-digital con-
verters (ADC), among others. In addition, strain
sensors require calibration and temperature com-
pensation before use.
3. Long-term installation of nodes on a bridge is a re-
quirement in bridge health monitoring. Thus, low
power consumption is a crucial feature of the plat-
form.
4. Bridges typically have multiple spans, and their to-
tal lengths always exceed the broadcast domain of
a node. Therefore, applications demand multi-hop
wireless communication.
5. Time synchronization is required to perform cor-
relation analyses of sampled data.
Two methods are generally used in designing an
optimal WSN platform: the use of standard motes and
the use of a customized platform. The first method uses
commercially available motes, which are convenient
and lend themselves to rapid development. However,
the use of motes may restrict the performance and
the operation of the platform. By contrast, the second
method involves the development of a customized
platform, which entails a long design period. Never-
theless, the platform is more flexible and efficient. In
consideration of these features, this study proposes
a multi-hop WSN-based platform with a customized
mote for continuous online SHM.
The monitoring platform consists of multiple nodes
and a base station. Each node has an S-Mote, either
an acceleration sensor board or a strain sensor board,
and two 3.6 V lithium batteries (Figure 1). The power
system comprises lithium batteries and a monitoring
196
S-mote node
Acceleration sensor board
batteries
(a)
Fig. 1. WSN platform with (a) acceleration board, (b) strain board.
Fig. 2. S-Mote node.
circuit for battery voltage. The sensor nodes form a
linear topology that measures acceleration, strain, or
other signals with the use of data transmitted to a base
station over multi-hop routing. The base station, which
is connected to a host computer via USB interface,
transfers data to the upper data analysis software. The
base station is a server that supplies more computa-
tional power and that has a larger storage than a sensor
node. It can also connect to the Internet.
3.1 Hardware design of the platform
3.1.1 S-Mote. S-Mote (Figure 2), which is designed
for SHM applications, is composed of four modules:
microcontroller unit, RF module, power management
unit, and sensor expansion pins. Figure 3 shows the
schematic of these major components. The microcon-
RFModule
Fig. 3. Block diagram of the S-Mote components.
Hu, Wang & Ji
batteries
Strain sensor board
S-mote node
(b)
troller unit provides the computational core of the
platform, whereas the RF module performs wireless
communication. The sensor expansion pins provide
the interfaces via a sensor board, and the power
management unit supplies power to the other modules.
Low power consumption is imperative for long-term
wireless deployment because power supply sources
determine system life. After a comparison and an eval-
uation of existing products such as Atmel, Motorola,
and Microchip, MSP430F1611 ultra-low-power micro-
controller was selected for S-Mote. Table 1 shows that
the microcontroller consumes only 2 mA of nominal
current. Doze mode can reduce consumption to 1 μA,
whereas ATmega128 (L) consumes 8 mA and 20 μA.
The MSP430F1611 microcontroller runs on 1.8–3.6
V. When running at 1 MHz with a supply voltage of
2.2 V, the microcontroller consumes 330 μA current in
active mode; off-mode operation reduces consumption
to 0.2 μA. MSP430F1611 provides the largest on-chip
(10 KB) RAM buffer, 48 KB of flash memory, an
integrated 12-bit ADC, and a maximum conversion
rate greater than 200 kbps.
S-Mote has a 16-pin IDC expansion header for
connecting sensor boards. Through exportation of
I2C, UART, AD, and Digital I/O over the expansion
header, expanders can be used to attach different
kinds of sensor boards. S-Mote uses the Chipcon
CC2420 radio in 2.4 GHz band, a wideband radio with
Sensor Expansion
MCU
Pins
Power
Management
 A wireless sensor network-based SHM system for highway bridges
Table 1
Comparison of the operating parameters of different
microcontrollers
ATmega128 ATmega128L MSP430F1611
Flash memory 128 KB 128 KB 48 KB
RAM on-chip 4 KB 4 KB 10 KB
Integrated 16-bit 16-bit 12-bit
ADC
Normal-mode 8 8 2
current
(mA)
Doze-mode 20 20 1 vibration signals, a new accelerometer board is designed
current
(μA)
0-QPSK modulation, and a DSSS at 250 kbps. The
high data rate facilitates shorter active periods and thus
further reduces energy consumption. In addition, the
CC2420 chip transceiver features one of the lowest
power consumption specifications in the IEEE802.15.4
family of modems. The receiving state consumes 19.7
mA, and the transmission state consumes 17.4 mA at
a receiving sensitivity of –99 dBm. S-Mote can also
communicate with any number of devices that share the
same physical layer. These devices include those from
other vendors because CC2420 supports IEEE 802.15.4
protocol. An internal 2.4 GHz planar, inverted, folded
antenna built into the printed circuit board is used for
S-Mote, which is programmed through an on-board
USB that also supplies power. S-Mote is equipped with
low-power temperature and humidity sensor SHT10
by Sensirion (Sensirion AG, Seaefa, Switzerland) to
measure environmental parameters. The sensor has
4.5% RH and 0.5 ◦ C degree of accuracy. The power
consumption of the sensor is 3 mW in active mode
and 2 μW in sleep mode under 3.3 V power supply
voltage.
Five measures for energy conservation in S-Mote are
used to reduce power consumption in WSNs for scalable
monitoring:
1. Other components (such as CC2420) that can also
function at low voltages are chosen, that is, those
that can run on two AA batteries or one lithium
battery.
2. A CPU that can be switched off separately is used,
which allows the chip peripherals to work indepen-
dently.
3. The frequency at which the core task is conducted
is reduced to lessen the power consumption of the
system while ensuring operational speed. Limiting
frequency is essential because the operating power
of the CMOS circuit comes primarily from charge
197
and discharge to the capacitor of the next input ter-
minal when the switch changes.
4. Interrupt technology is used to keep the system in
sleep mode regularly.
5. The CPU controls the power of the external IC so
that it can be turned off when no work is being
done.
3.1.2 Design of the acceleration sensor board. Ac-
celerations provide useful information on structural
vibration characteristics. For the collection of structural
(Figure 1a), in which a two-dimensional Silicon Designs
1221L accelerometer is used. This accelerometer is
a low-noise integrated accelerometer, with the input
acceleration ranging from –0.1 g to +0.1 g. It provides
the monitoring system with acceptable sensitivity to
ambient structural vibrations at a relatively low cost.
Tests show
√ that the accelerometer has a noise floor of
32 μg/ Hz, which is small enough to enable resolution
of the ambient vibrations of most structural systems
(Kim et al., 2007).
The sensitivity of SD1221L is 2,000 mV/g, which cor-
responds to a peak bridge vibration of 2 mg. The output
of the accelerometer is 4 mV, which is considered a
weak signal. The signal needs differential amplification,
which is a requirement in bridge structural monitoring.
The magnification is set at 500 at a range from 0–4 mV
to 0–1 V to ensure wide-range data collection input.
At the same time, multilevel amplifier technology is
adopted to avoid the self-excited oscillation caused by
excessive magnification (Figure 4). First, the first-level
differential amplifier magnifies the signal 50 times. A
high magnification may cause system noise, so a low-
pass filter with a cutoff frequency of 50 Hz is attached
behind the amplifier. The second-level amplifier then
magnifies the signal 10 times. For the low-pass filter, a
two-order Butterworth filter is used for convenience.
Finally, the output signal of the acceleration sensor
board is fed into the 12-bit ADC in S-Mote, which is
set with an external 2.5V reference. As implemented
in the design, the system with acceptable sensitivity
accelerometer and 12-bit resolution ADC is able to
detect ambient vibrations due to wind and traffic on the
order of hundreds of micrograms. Higher sensitivity
accelerometer and higher resolution ADC would
further improve the resolution.
Furthermore, changes in temperature may cause the
accelerometer output to drift, so temperature com-
pensation is required (Kim, 2005), especially when the
temperature varies over a wide range. Linear forecast
amendment method is adopted to compensate for the
effect of temperature. For example, the accelerom-
eter output Vg contains two components: one under
198
Differential
Accelerometer
Amplifier
Fig. 4. Multilevel amplifier and filter of vibration signals.
acceleration Vg and the other is affected by temperature
Vt ·Vg = Vg + Vt = kg T + Vg , where kg is the slope, and
T is the temperature variable. Therefore, when finding
a variable Vt as follows Vt = −kg T + Vb, where Vb is
the offset, Vt can be used to compensate for Vg .
3.1.3 Design of the strain sensor board. Aside from ac-
celeration, structural strain is also an important physical
quantity. Strain measurement can directly reflect the ex-
tent of damage, so it is a critical component of SHM.
Figure 1b shows the new strain sensor board developed
in this work.
Many different strain sensors that use diverse mea-
surement methods, including mechanical, optical, and
electrical techniques, are available. A mechanical strain
sensor, such as a slide caliper, is simple, but generally,
it has poor resolution. A device with levers to amplify
strain to readable values can be developed, but this
tool is prohibitively large. Optical sensors are typically
costly or too delicate for use due to the large number
of S-Motes expected for deployment on a bridge.
Electrical sensors, which include piezoelectric sensors,
semiconductor strain gauges, and the widely used foil
strain gauges, have high resolutions and are compact,
durable, and inexpensive. Therefore, electrical sensors
are good candidates for the development of wireless
strain sensor boards.
In electrical sensors, the sensitivity of piezoelectric
sensors in low frequency range is relatively poor;
that of semiconductor strain gauges to temperature
variation and their tendency to drift are nontrivial
disadvantages in view of these gauges’ DC capability
(Ruiz-Sandoval et al., 2006). By contrast, foil strain
gauges have a wide frequency range and possess DC
capability. They also cost low and can be installed easily
on structural surfaces as opposed to being embedded in
concrete. Thus, the foil strain gauge is chosen for this
study. However, environmental factors, particularly
temperature, easily deform strain gauges. Therefore, an
asymmetrical bridge circuit configuration (Figure 5) is
developed to address this issue. In the figure, kR0 de-
notes a precise resistance, R0 (1 + X1 + X2 ) represents
the strain gauge attached along the direction of bridge
compressive stress, and R0 (1 + X1 ) is vertically located
at the position of R0 (1 + X1 + X2 ), where X1 and X2
are the deformations caused by changes in environment
Hu, Wang & Ji
S-Mote
Low-pass Sencond-lever
Filter Amplifier
R0(1+X1+X2) R0(1+X1)
V
KR0 KR0
V0
Fig. 5. Temperature compensation circuit.
temperature and bridge stress, respectively. Because
R0 (1 + X1 ) does not have bridge stress, the strain gauge
suffers only from temperature deformation, which is
exactly the same as that of R0 (1 + X1 + X2 ).
For the circuit shown in Figure 5, K  X1 , X2 ,
input V 0 is estimated to be related only to X2 , and the
influence of temperature deformation X 1 is eliminated.
In the system, K has a value of 1,000, with which accept-
able compensation effects can be achieved. In the strain
sensor board, the strain signal is obtained with the
above-mentioned temperature compensation circuit.
Hence, the output of the bridge circuit has the same
signal processing as the vibration signal. This process
includes differential amplification, low-pass filtering,
and second-level amplification. Finally, the processed
signal is fed into an ADC. A target noise level is sought
that is equal to 1 με. Significant high frequency noise
was found to be present in the strain sensor board. The
low-pass filter described earlier was also employed in
this application to remove the high frequency noise.
This filter also reduces the problem of aliasing.
3.1.4 Power consumption. The power consumption of
a system is one of the most critical issues in WSNs.
Therefore, the limited power available in sensor nodes
should be used efficiently. The performance of the
nodes in each operation affects the life spans of the
nodes and subsequently, the lifetime of the entire net-
work. Table 2 lists the power consumption values of the
platform, as determined by laboratory measurements.
In the experiments, two AA lithium batteries provide
a total capacity of 7,500 mAh, which is more powerful
than that supplied by conventional AA batteries. Each
system activity covers synchronization, sampling, data
transmission to the sink node, and sleep mode until the
 A wireless sensor network-based SHM system for highway bridges 199

Table 2 3.2.2 Workflow of S-Mote. The program installed in

Power consumption in various operational situations
(7.2 V supply voltage)
Operation Operation
(S-Mote + (S-Mote +
acceleration board) [mA] strain board) [mA]
Sleep mode ∼2 μA Sleep mode ∼2 μA
Idle mode 9.6 Idle mode 9.8
Sampling 13.4 Sampling 14.1
Radio packet 34.8 Radio packet 35.2
transmission transmission
Radio 36.7 Radio 37.0
listening/packet listening/packet
reception reception
next activation. During idle periods, the sensor board
and the mote are turned on but do not perform any
operation. Table 2 also shows that the data transmission
and the reception by the radio are the key factors for
power consumption. These values are used to estimate
the expected lifetime of the proposed SHM system. In
the current prototype, the two AA lithium batteries
with 7,500 mAh capacity power the nodes, and they
provide a supply of 7.2 V at full charge. Consequently,
if about 90% of the battery resources are used before
they are discharged below the operational voltage
required by the nodes, an effective capacity of about
6,750 mAh results in a continuous monitoring service
life of about 168 hours or 7 days, as dictated by battery
resources. In SHM application, a duty-cycle approach
to sampling is adopted. Therefore, reducing the sam-
pling period prolongs the service life of the system.
When a duty-cycle approach is implemented, in which
the sensor node participates in active sampling for only
1 hour/day, the service life is extended to 168 days.
3.2 Platform software design
3.2.1 Software architecture for S-Mote. TinyOS is used
in S-Mote. It is an operating system developed by UC
Berkeley and has been adopted by numerous WSN
research groups. TinyOS is a multilevel component-
oriented software that supports a wide variety of
applications for WSNs. Low-level components per-
form basic tasks, and high-level components use the
sequences of the low-level components to achieve a
more complex functionality while maintaining coding
efficiency and simplicity. The system software archi-
tecture intended to satisfy the requirements of bridge
SHM is illustrated in Figure 6. The figure shows that
the main components of TinyOS include peer-to-peer
communication, routing, reliable data transfer, time
synchronization, and data buffering.
S-Mote collects the sampled data, writes these data into
flash memory, and transmits them to the base station
via routing protocol. In the present system’s plat-
form, MintRoute protocol (Woo et al., 2003) is used.
MintRoute establishes packet routing information by
minimizing the power cost of multi-hop travel from
the sensor nodes to the base station, so it is applied
to the platform to satisfy the demand for low-power
consumption. Figure 7 shows the workflow of S-Mote.
The green LED light is turned on after the S-Mote
nodes are deployed and switched on. The light indicates
that the nodes are ready and waiting for the start com-
mand from the base station. As soon as the nodes re-
ceive the start command, they collect ambient vibration
data or strain data, and they write these back to the flash
memory with the blue LED light on. After the sampling
period, the nodes switch to sleep mode with the blue
LED light off. The node reads the data reserved from
the flash memory and transports these back to the base
station when it receives the send data command.
3.2.3 Time synchronization protocol. In our system,
the Energy-Balanced time Synchronization (EBS) pro-
tocol is used for time synchronization. Compared with
time-stamping Flooding Time Synchronization Protocol
(FTSP), the EBS protocol considers the special require-
ments and characteristics of bridge SHM, such as energy
balance. The protocol achieves energy-balanced per-
formance by exploiting a dynamic span leader election
algorithm while reducing the number of broadcast syn-
chronization messages. A more in-depth examination of
the protocol can be found in the recent work of Hu et al.
(2010). This section provides only a brief introduction.
EBS defines network topology in terms of hierarchy
level. A span is a level and a broadcast scale. In each
span, a node is selected as the time-stamped message
sender and has maximum residual energy, whereas the
other nodes are receivers in the same span. The sender
node of each span is dynamically elected in every
synchronization period. EBS synchronizes the time of a
sender with that of possibly multiple receivers with the
use of a single radio message time-stamped as FTSP
at both the sender and receiver sides. In theory, the
synchronization process can be described as follows:
Step 1: The root node broadcasts a synchronization
packet to inform the nodes of the first span in which
they should initiate the synchronization. Each synchro-
nization packet contains three fields: packetType, time-
stamp, and rootID.
Step 2: The sensor nodes (IDij ) that receive the syn-
chronization packet first compare the rootID with their
IDij . If i(IDij ) > i(rootIDij ), they discard the synchro-
nization packet. Otherwise, the nodes estimate their
200 Hu, Wang & Ji

Application Layer Component (SHM)

Reliable Data Time

Transfer Synchronization

Component Component

Routing Component

Data
Buffer
Peer- to- Peer Communication Component Component

Fig. 6. Software architecture of the TinyOS components.

Begin

Nodes wait for command

Is it the command from

base station?

N
Y Y Y
Sampling data and Blue LED off
Parse command Start sampling? Flash is full?
writing into Flash

N N
Y
Reading data in
Send data command Reading Flash
Flash, data Green LED on
for this node over?
transmitted back

Fig. 7. Workflow of S-Mote.

own local clock offset and modify the clock according
to the received timestamp. After waiting for a bounded
random duration, they return the acknowledged ACK
packets.
Step 3: The root node compares the remaining energy
after all the ACK packets have been received, and it
selects the node with the maximum remaining energy
as the next synchronization node. When multiple nodes
have the same remaining energy, an arbitrary node is
elected. Then the root node sends the select packet to
the selected node.
Step 4: The node selected as the synchronization node
broadcasts a synchronization packet to all the nodes in
the same span. The other nodes directly discard the se-
lect packet. The next synchronization period starts from
Step 1.
The proposed EBS algorithm follows the notion of
fine-grained clock, MAC-layer time-stamping with sev-
eral jitter-reducing techniques to achieve high precision
in FTSP (Maróti et al., 2004). The average error of the
algorithm for a single-hop case is exactly the same as
FTSP. For a sampling rate of 100 Hz, a total jitter of
500 μs or 5% of the sampling interval was selected as
the cap for the total jitter. Experiments by Maróti et al.
(2004) showed that the protocol limits the spatial jitter
to 67 μs over a network of 59 nodes and 11 hops. The
tests in the study of Kim et al. (2007) indicated that the
temporal jitter is limited to 10 μs for a sampling rate of
up to 6.67 kHz. In this study, the system is a network
of 26 nodes and 4 hops. Therefore, the jitter, which
is smaller than the target value of 500 μs, is within
tolerable range.
 A wireless sensor network-based SHM system for highway bridges 201

4 DATA ANALYSIS SOFTWARE where δ and η are the constant values formed as a result
of a single and a double integrating ε, respectively. The
In the case of a structure as a dynamic system, the use of trapezium formula yields
measure of acceleration is the recording of dynamic [a  (i) + a  (i + 1)]
response under random load, whereas the strain sensor v̂(i) = v̂(i − 1) + + [ε(i/ fs ) + δ]
2 fs
records the static–dynamic strain. In an integrated
monitoring system, the displacement quantity should + v̂(0), (i = 1, 2 . . . n − 1)
be analyzed for dynamic bridge performance. However, (2)
directly determining displacement is difficult and incurs 
[v̂(k) + v̂(k + 1)] 1
high costs because the variations in displacement signals ŝ(k) = ŝ(k − 1) + + ε(k/ fs )2
are very weak. This study proposes a novel method to 2 fs 2

determine dynamic displacement by vibration accel-
eration signals. Through continuous monitoring, the + (δ + v̂(0)) (k/ fs ) + η + ŝ(0), (k = 1, 2 . . . n − 2)
system compiles a historical database for the structural
dynamic responses of a bridge. The database can verify Equation (2) shows that the velocity signal con-
and modify bridge models, as well as accelerate the tains tread item ε(i/ fs ) + [δ + v̂(0)], and the dis-
development of reliable diagnostic and prognostic tools placement signal contains tread item 12 ε(k/ fs )2 + [δ +
for SHM. The data processing software in the system is v̂(0)](k/ fs ) + [η + ŝ(0)].
based on VC++, and it is composed of a main process- The polynomial fitting method for extreme values is
ing procedure and a database. In the main procedure, then used to fit the tread items. With the time domain
three physical quantities can be selected for considera- integral, data points (ti , vi )(i = 0, 1, . . . , n
− 1) exist,
tion: acceleration, dynamic displacement, and strain. where t denotes the time. Note that fm(t) = m k=0 pkt ∈
k

 is assumed, where Pk is the polynomial coefficient,

and  is a function class consisting of a polynomial
4.1 Analysis of acceleration signals expression with  no more than m(m ≤ n − 1) of all
n−1 n−1
degrees. If I = i=0 [vi − fm(ti )]2 = i=0 [ mk=0 vi −
First, for acceleration data, the inherent frequency of a
pktik]2 = min, according to the theory of conditional ex-
structure can be determined by power spectral density
tremes on the functions of several variables, the follow-
(PSD) algorithm. Second, dynamic displacement data
ing exists:
are similarly obtained with the use of numerical value
m

integral to acceleration data. A new method that uses ∂I 

n−1  j
the numerical value integral to acceleration data in the =2 vi − pkti ti = 0, j = 0, 1, . . . , m
k
∂ pj (3)
time domain is proposed to obtain dynamic displace- i=0 k=0
ment data at a low cost. Although displacement data With the matrix expression, the formula is
can be obtained after determining the integral value ⎡ ⎤ ⎡ ⎤
twice, numerical integration errors may be introduced, 
n−1  m
n−1 
n−1
⎢ n ti ti ⎥ vi ⎥
as the integral value is determined. A polynomial ⎢ i=0 i=0 ⎥⎡ ⎤ ⎢⎢ i=0 ⎥
⎢ ⎥ p0 ⎢ ⎥
fitting method for extreme values is developed to ⎢ n−1  m+1 ⎥ ⎢⎥ ⎢
⎥ ⎢ n−1 ⎥
⎢   2
n−1 n−1
⎢ ⎥
 ⎥
eliminate the error. The method allows high-accuracy ⎢ ti ti ··· ti ⎥ ⎢ p1 ⎥ ⎢ ti vi ⎥
⎢ i=0 ⎥⎢ ⎥ ⎢ i=0 ⎥
displacement data to be acquired easily. ⎢ i=0 i=0 ⎥⎢ . ⎥ = ⎢ ⎥
⎢ . ⎥ ⎢ . ⎥ ⎢ ⎥
The sampling acceleration signal has a direct cur- ⎢ . .. .. ⎥ ⎢ . ⎥ ⎢ .. ⎥
⎢ . . ··· . ⎥⎣ ⎦ ⎢⎢ . ⎥
rent component caused by the zero drift of sensors, so ⎢ ⎥ ⎥
⎢ n−1 ⎥ p m ⎢ ⎥
a(t) = a(t) + ε is denoted, where a(t) is the sampling ⎢  m n−1  m+1  2m ⎥
n−1 ⎢ n−1
 m ⎥
⎣ t t ··· t ⎦ ⎣ ti vi ⎦
acceleration, a  (t) is the real acceleration, and ε is the i=0
i
i=0
i
i=0
i
i=0
DC component. After obtaining the integral value, the
velocity signal and the displacement signal are deter-
The coefficient matrix of equations is confirmed to be
mined as follows:
 t  t a symmetric positive definite matrix; thus, a unique so-
v(t) = a(t)dt + v(0) = a  (t) + (εt + δ) + v(0) lution exists. In view of the tread items, the fitting poly-
0 0 nomial is obtained:
 t  t f1 (i/ fs ) = p1 (i/ fs ) + p0 , f2 (i/ fs ) = q2 (i/ fs )2

s(t) = v(t)dt + s(0) = s (t) + q1 (i/ fs ) + q0
0 0 (4)
 
1 2 (1) where (i = 0, 1, . . . , n − 1). After the solution of the
+ εt + δ + v(0)t + η + s(0)
2 above-mentioned equations is derived, the error of the
202
Begin
Choose test model
Install strain gauge
Stand stress loader exerts
pressure
Read the output value of Read the output value of
reference measurement strain sensor board
Curve fit using the least
squares method
Fig. 8. Calibration process.
tread items can be eliminated. Chen et al. (2010) per-
formed an in-depth examination of the algorithm, in
which the mean square error can approach 0.04% in a
numerical example.
4.2 Calibration of the strain sensor board
As previously mentioned, the strain signal is fed into
an ADC after data processing. However, quantizing the
deformation of a foil strain gauge is difficult. Therefore,
the strain sampling system should be calibrated before
use. The calibration process (Figure 8) is described as
follows.
The system is calibrated with the use of a 15 × 15 ×
15 C30 chip concrete model. A strain gauge is installed
on the model and connected to both the strain sensor
board and a conventional strain-measuring instrument.
A compensation gauge is also attached to the model,
which is perpendicular to the object. Then a standard
stress loader exerts pressure on the chip concrete in the
vertical direction. Under the same pressure, the output
values of the wireless strain sensor board and the refer-
ence strain measurement are compared. Comparison of
the real strain value with the AD sampling value reveals
their mathematical relationship.
Curve fitting is conducted with the use of least squares
method, which yields y = 0.0615 × AD − 4.66, where y
is the strain value, whose unit is με, and AD denotes the
digital reading of ADC. Figure 9 is the fitting curve of
the foil strain gauge. The fitting results show that the co-
efficient of determination is nearly 1, which is adequate
for the requirement of accuracy. In our proposed sys-
tem, every strain gauge is calibrated with the use of the
method in Figure 8.
Hu, Wang & Ji
measuring points
fitting curve
)
Strain value (
Digital reading of ADC
Fig. 9. Fitting curve of a foil strain gauge.
5 DEPLOYMENT OF THE SYSTEM
This study investigated the Zhengdian Highway Bridge
in Wuhan, China (Figure 10a), a prestressed, concrete
structure, simply supported slab bridge. It is a series
of simply supported spans without connection. The en-
tire bridge is 484.36 m long, with 187.82 m of highway
in the south–north connection line. The main bridge is
296.54 m long, which consists of 18 spans of 16 m each
and two bridge abutments. Table 3 shows the detailed
parameters of the bridge. A 3D finite element model for
the bridge was developed to determine the best position
for the sensor nodes.
5.1 Finite element analysis
Integral modeling method with ANSYS software was
used. The concrete structure is a SOLID65 unit, which
is adopted to simulate 3D reinforced or nonreinforced
concrete model. Eight nodes are defined. Each node has
three degrees of freedom, that is, translation of the x,
y, and z directions in the node coordinate system. For
the unit of end bearing section, x, y two-way constraint
is applied to simulate the fixed support and y-way con-
straint is to simulate the sliding support. Figures 10b and
10c show the integral analysis model.
To analyze the strain of the key section under the
most unfavorable load, a balanced and anunbalanced
load (Figure 11) in bridge horizontal direction is used,
the maximum strain value is then obtained. The bridge
is a simply supported slab bridge that has a static set
structure, so the force applied to it is determinate. The
mid-span, quarter-span, and fulcrum sections are com-
pared. The results of the finite element static analysis
show that the maximum strain value of the monitored
 A wireless sensor network-based SHM system for highway bridges 203

(a) (b)

(c)

Fig. 10. Test structure: Zhengdian Bridge (a) photograph, (b) axonometric drawing, and (c) front elevation.

Table 3 and additional strain gauges were installed in places

Fundamental parameters of the Zhengdian Bridge where the stress is relatively large, such as in the mid-
Designed load span section. Figure 12 shows the exact installation po-
carrying capacity Automobile: 20, trailer: 120 sition of the strain nodes in the four spans, with trian-
gles representing the positions of nodes. Accelerome-
Bridge deck 0.5 m crash barrier + 9.0 m roadway + ters capture the dynamic response of the bridge under
layout 0.5 m crash barrier = 10.0 m ambient and forced vibration, so they determine modal
Structure Main bridge 4 + 0.02 + 18 × 16 + 0.02
properties. To obtain a stronger signal, accelerome-
+ 4.5 = 296.54 m
ters should be installed at locations considered as the
Northern connection 113.98 m
Southern connection 73.48 m peak positions of order modes. Therefore, taking into
Longitudinal Northern 1.249%, southern 2.471%, all account the mode shapes of the simple beam bridge,
slope less than 4% we placed six acceleration nodes on the mid-span and
Superstructure Prestressed reinforced concrete hollow quarter-span sections of the 7th, 8th, and 9th spans.
slab simply supported, nine slabs per The results of finite element analysis on the bridge
span, slab height 0.8 m show that the first-order fundamental frequencies are
Material C50 precast concrete hollow slab below 10 Hz. The noise level is usually high in uncon-
trolled bridge environments, so oversampling is gen-
erally performed by reduction in relative noise energy
highway bridge is almost 101 με in the mid-span sec- to improve the signal-to-noise ratio. Therefore, a sam-
tion. Modal frequencies and modal shapes are also cal- pling rate of 100 Hz was chosen for this study. Over-
culated. For example, the first-order frequencies of the sampling reduces the effect of ADC quantization noise
7th, 8th, and 9th spans are 7.279, 7.280, and 7.278 Hz, and is generally accepted to provide an additional bit
respectively. of effective resolution for each power of four rate of
oversampling.
Each node run begins with building the network
5.2 Instrumentation topology and synchronizing. After receiving a sampling
In the highway bridge structure model, the 7th, 8th, and command from the sink node, each node initiates the
9th spans and the 10th, 11th, and 12th spans are sym- sampling. The 8 MB memory of the M25P80 serial
metrically constructed. Therefore, for convenience in flash in each node can be allocated to any combination
installation and in analysis of the results, the 7th, 8th, of sensor channels on the node (two-dimensional ac-
and 9th spans are selected for acceleration measure- celerometer, temperature sensor, or strain sensors). The
ment, whereas the 10th, 11th, 12th, and 13th spans are recorded data are then transmitted from each node to
selected for strain measurement. From the results of fi- the base station by multi-hop communication. In this
nite element static analysis, the side-span, mid-span, and study, a complete cycle of sampling and data collec-
quarter-span sections were set as monitoring sections, tion for the network produces 6 MB of data and takes
204
(a)
Fig. 11. Unbalanced load and balanced load arrangement in the horizontal direction (unit: mm).
8.7m
Slab Spacing
7.11m
4.85m
0
0 7.43m 14.86m
11th span
10th span
Fig. 12. Strain node position.
about an hour and a half. The total measurement is de-
termined under a random load, that is, the bridge has
random and nonspecific traffic. To determine the initial-
ization value of the strain, the bridge was temporarily
closed to traffic for 15 minutes before the measurements
were taken.
6 ANALYSIS AND RESULTS
The monitoring system aims to collect dynamic re-
sponse data of the bridge when it is subjected to ran-
dom and moving vehicle loads to help evaluate the state
of the highway bridge during its life span.
As an example of ambient vibration data, the vertical
accelerations from the accelerometers at the quarter-
span of the 7th, 8th, and 9th spans are shown in Fig-
ure 13. The sampling frequency was 100 Hz over 250
seconds and thus resulted in 25,000 samples per chan-
nel. Each figure includes plots of the signal and the
power spectral density. The amplitudes of the ambient
accelerations are about ±5 mg, but spikes of up to 20
mg are apparent. These spikes are presumably caused
by heavy vehicles traveling on the highway. The PSD
plots show clear and consistent peaks at frequencies
at several nodes. These spectral peaks are distinct in
lower frequencies, which correspond to the vertical vi-
bration mode shapes of the bridge, as will be shown
later. The PSD plots indicate that the low-frequency
noise level is very small compared with the peaks of the
spectra.
In this study, mode shapes were derived from six ver-
tical acceleration measurements with the use of multi-
Hu, Wang & Ji
(b)
12th span 13th span
Longitudinal Distance
variate autoregressive models (ARX) method to reveal
the first three order modes. In the multivariate ARX
system model, stochastic system input is unmeasured,
which can be reasonably assumed to have the character-
istics of white noise. Figure 14 shows several estimated
vertical modes with frequencies in the 0 Hz–20 Hz fre-
quency band. These mode shapes correlate in terms of
frequency and shape with finite element analysis from a
model constructed from as-built drawings. As the num-
ber of data points increases, the model shapes would
match better.
From the above-mentioned integral numerical value
of acceleration data, the measured velocity and dynamic
displacements curves with the elimination of tread items
errors (Figure 15) under the random load were ob-
tained. The dynamic displacements in Figure 15 remain
nearly within the baseline. Figure 15 also shows that the
measured maximum value is less than 10 mm in 40 sec-
onds, which is smaller than 27 mm, the designed maxi-
mum permissible value under standard calculation load.
For in-service bridges, a reasonable impact coefficient
response reflects the safety performance state of bridges
to a certain degree. From the displacement, the coef-
ficient of impact μ of the bridge can be calculated as
follows:
(d + a )
1+μ= (5)
d
where d is the acceleration integral value under the
worst designed loads, and a represents the maximum
displacement in the displacement diagram. Table 4
shows the impact coefficients of the 7th, 8th, and 9th
 A wireless sensor network-based SHM system for highway bridges 205

Fig. 13. Acceleration time history and power spectral density for a vertical sensor at (a) 7th quarter-span, (b) 8th quarter-span,
and (c) 9th quarter-span.
206 Hu, Wang & Ji

Fig. 14. Mode shape estimates derived from application of ARX.

spans, in which the measured coefficients are all lower
than the designed value.
The statistic dynamic strain under random live load
could be obtained with the data gathered from the strain
sensors. Examination of the strain data shows that the
measured maximum strains of the 10th, 11th, and 12th
spans are 22, 12, and 14 με under public traffic, respec-
tively. Comparing the measured strain data with the
designed bound value maintains the strain coefficient
of checkout. The coefficients of checkout of the bridge
spans are between 0.10 and 0.34, and they indicate that
the safe operating limits of the highway bridge are rela-
tively sufficient.
Overall, our study shows that the integral contin-
uous monitoring system represents a simple, low-cost
method to obtain long-time, statistic dynamic response
data for the assessment of bridge health condition.
The data gathered can help verify a design method
or indicate the level of service life remaining in the
structure.
 A wireless sensor network-based SHM system for highway bridges 207

Fig. 15. Velocity and dynamic displacement time history in the mid-span section of (a) the 7th span, (b) the 8th span, and (c) the
9th span.
208 Hu, Wang & Ji
Table 4
Impact coefficient of the bridge structure (1 + μ)
Impact coefficient (1+μ)
Span Measured Calculated
number Node position value value
7 Quarter-span 1.028 1.3350
Mid-span 1.030
8 Quarter-span 1.030 1.3351
Mid-span 1.037
9 Quarter-span 1.080 1.3350
Mid-span 1.050
7 CONCLUSIONS
We have developed an integrated bridge health mon-
itoring system based on a WSN for bridge SHM. The
system is comprehensive and practical because it com-
bines a bottom data collection platform with upper
data analysis software. The platform consumes ultra-
low power and is flexible, indicating scalability to all
kinds of sensors, including acceleration, temperature,
and strain sensors. The network topology uses multi-
hops, with up to four hops in our experiment. The soft-
ware enables the analysis of multiple types of dynamic
response parameters, including vibration acceleration,
dynamic displacement, and dynamic strain for continu-
ous bridge health monitoring.
The system was deployed in the Zhengdian Highway
Bridge. The ability of the proposed system to capture
data, transmit data via multi-hop wireless communica-
tion, and analyze monitoring data has been validated
through tests performed on the bridge for continuous
SHM of in-service bridges. In contrast to the finite ele-
ment analysis and theoretical analysis results, those for
the proposed system coincide with one another, certify-
ing the feasibility and validity of the system.
The limitations of the current work present opportu-
nities for future research on bridge SHM systems based
on WSNs. The time consumed for network topologi-
cal discovery is up to nearly 1 minute in the four-hop
network. This result may be attributed to the existence
of field noise interferences, which are unstable. Extend-
ing the number of hops will prolong the time spent on
topological discovery. In addition, packet loss was ob-
served during the tests. The final packet delivery ratio
is nearly 99.96%. A good solution to this problem is to
incorporate a data recovery mechanism into sink nodes.
To satisfy the requirements of bridge SHM, more strain
sensors should be considered, including vibrating steel
wire transducers, which are as widely used as resistance
strain gauges.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors give special thanks to the staff and man-
agement of the Zhengdian Bridge Management Corpo-
ration for their close cooperation with them in every
step of the project. They also give thanks to graduate
students, Yin An, Liu Zhuo, Tang Xuanlai, and Chen
Weizhen. This work was funded by the National Natural
Science Foundation of China (No. 60802002) and Spe-
cial Fund from the Central Collegiate Basic Scientific
Research Bursary (No. 2011TS140). The authors would
like to thank editors and anonymous reviewers for their
insightful comments.
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