Advanced Structural Health Monitoring based on Collective Intelligence

• Applicant: Professor Dr.-Ing. Kay Smarsly
• Subject Area: Structural Engineering, Building Informatics and Construction Operation
• Term: from 2009 to 2013
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 158447537

Goal of the research project is to develop an intelligent structural health monitoring system for continuous real-time monitoring and autonomous safety assessment of structural systems in civil engineering, in particular highway bridges. Based on a novel scientific methodology, a monitoring strategy will be established couplingwireless sensor networks andmulti-agent technology.On the one hand, wireless sensing nodes, seen as autonomous hardware agents, are to be embedded in the observed structure. These sensors are responsible for collecting, processing and collaboratively analyzing structural as well as environmental data. On the other hand, connected to the wireless sensor network interacting software agents representing self-contained software entities are to be situated on different computers. The linkages of such agents form a distributed multi-agent system which supports the involved human experts by processing crucial monitoring tasks independently, such as permanent data storage, autonomous damage detection and model-based safety assessment utilizing computational mechanics.As a nucleus of the proposed research project, single (microscopic) agent behavior will be interconnected to a global (macroscopic) system behavior. As a result, collective intelligent group behavior can be achieved that is designated as emergence in modern computer science (“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts”). Accordingly, two important subjects are addressed, concerning (i) the observed engineering structure and (ii) the emergent monitoring system:to gain novel insights into the complex behavior of civil engineering structures and to discover emergent structural coherences holistically by means of collective intelligenceto create comprehensive system self-organization and fault-tolerant system behavior by evoking emergent properties within the monitoring systemIn total, the proposed monitoring system, which will finally be mounted on a highway bridge for field tests, is assumed to provide a stable, practical and cost-efficient monitoring. The estimated outcome is to make a significant contribution to structural health monitoring and to promote economic monitoring concepts.

• DFG Programme: Research Fellowships
• International Connection: USA
• Host: Professor Kincho H. Law