WSN-based systems for structural health monitoring could be the answer to the many dramatic events involving the collapse of public structures and private buildings. A system that is unavailable in today’s trend and that will be able to provide long lasting monitoring, robust and reliable data delivery as requested by increasing safety demands is about to be created.
The Green sEnsor NEtworks for Structural monItoring (GENESI) project has been proposed that will address all the critical barriers and challenges that prevent the application of WSNs for monitoring structures, buildings and spaces. In particular, by combining new hardware and software design, the GENESI will produce systems for structural health monitoring that are long lasting, pervasive and totally distributed and autonomous. This will mitigate the effects collapsed building or avoid them and save the lives taken as a result of their occurrence.
According to the Team Leader Prof. Luca Benini, “New wireless sensor nodes will be build that are capable of achieving virtual infinite lifetime through a well-balanced combination of cutting edge technologies, such as energy harvesting from multiple sources, the first small factor fuel cells, low-cost radio triggering for minimizing idle energy consumption and algorithms for smart interference management”
It in intended that the new software will act to complement the GENESI hardware in the quest of long lasting system lifetime by taking into account the when and how much of energy is available. At the same time, end user requirements will be met according to a newly defined application driven with the Quality of Service concept.
“Novel task allocation algorithms, cross-layer protocol stacks, situation awareness and context discovery mechanisms complete the definition of a system that addresses the major challenges of the ICT theme of FP7- the EU 7th Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development. Finally, involving end users directly into the research cycle as key players, GENESI is poised to address realistic societal needs while fostering technology transfer and market exploitation.
The project will be coordinated by Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza” (Italy) with participants from Universiteit Twente (The Netherlands), University College Cork, National University of Ireland, Cork (Eire), Stmicroelectronics S.r.l. (Italy), Consorziotreesse (Italy), Solexperts AG (Switzerland)
Source