Project Description

The project focuses on developing a Wireless Smart Sensor (WSS) system to automatically assess railroad bridge performance in near real-time under train loads. A novel algorithm for on-line, reference-free dynamic displacement estimation is developed and implemented for onboard computation. The system also ultilizes advances in embedded systems technologies to enable rapid anomaly detection and exception reporting to the engineers and decision makers.

Railroad Impact

The final monitoring system is a reliable, and low-cost WSS-based solution focusing on campaign-type railroad bridge monitoring. The sensor system also aims to be effortlessly scalable for bridge network monitoring. Final study also provides a data-driven bridge performance guideline from the monitoring campaigns to assist future bridge inspection and performance assessment.