With the upcoming centennial anniversary of the San Francisco earthquake, there has been a bit of a buzz about structural monitoring with wireless sensor networks. The basic idea is straightforward: put in a WSN with equipped with accelerometers; measure responses of the accelerometers to determine whether the structure as a whole (or individual members of it) is sound.

This year, NSF recognized the importance of this research, and allocated the $400,000 5 year CAREER award to Prof. Yufeng Zhang at Lehigh University. Prof. Zhang wants to push forward the structural monitoring with sensor networks; a key element in his research is the development of suitable data compression algorithms that will help overcome the bandwidth limitations of sensor nets. Full story at Lehigh University

Researchers at North Carolina State University are building a system for structural monitoring based around Tmote Sky. They are using strain gauges as the main sensors, and have constructed a Tmote Sky sensor board that provides signal conditioning for their sensors. A technical report documenting the design and its performance is available here  

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