Deployment of Self-Powered Structural Health Monitoring System for Highway Bridges

The development of the wireless sensor network has provided an effective tool for building a structural health monitoring system that can monitor the condition of civil structures and infrastructure in real time. However, the power supply for data acquisition components and wireless data communication modules becomes a challenge when the traditional power supply—the electrochemical battery—is limited to short-time operation and the wireless data communication modules must operate with a high frequency to meet the terms “in real time”. This study first proposes a self-powered structural health monitoring system using a magnetostrictive vibration energy harvester. A field test was conducted to evaluate the performance of three wireless data communication technologies: IM920, long-range (LoRa), and Sigfox. According to the observation results, Sigfox is the most appropriate wireless data communication technology for the proposed self-powered structural health monitoring system with inexpensive, reliable, and low power consumption advantages. Subsequently, two long-term energy harvesting tests were conducted using the magnetostrictive vibration energy harvester to evaluate the device’s performance. Finally, the proposed self-powered structural health monitoring system was deployed at an actual highway bridge and operated stably with the data frequency transmitted four times a day. These results proved the potential for developing a real-time self-powered structural health monitoring system.