1st International Conference on Electrical and Information Technologies ICEIT’2015

A Wireless Sensor Network Monitoring System for

Highway Bridges
Amro Al-Radaideh1, A. R. Al-Ali1, Salwa Bheiry2, Sameer Alawnah1
1 2
Computer Science and Engineering Department, Civil Engineering Department
American university of Sharjah, Sharjah, UAE
aali@aus.edu

Abstract— As wireless smart sensor networks and
geographical information systems (GIS) are evolving nowadays,
applications of remote monitoring in wide spread geographical
areas are becoming cost-effective and possible. An example of
such applications is the structural health status monitoring of
highway bridges that connect roads in both rural and urban
areas. Many of these bridges are subject to deterioration due to
external and internal factors. Online, real-time structural health
monitoring is a resourceful complimentary tool to facilitate rapid
field inspection. Bridge maintenance and infrastructure
managers can easily use this application to safeguard the
performance and safety of these vital structures. This paper
presents an autonomous wireless sensor network system to
monitor structural health in highways bridges. The proposed
system consists of a wireless Data Acquisition Unit (DAQ), a
mobile public network, a structural health data evaluation, a
management middleware, a GIS and graphical user interface
module. The sensors in the DAQ gather the bridge health signs
and transmit them promptly via the public mobile networks to
the management and evaluation middleware for further
processing. Based on the national bridge inventory rating scale,
an early warning fuzzy logic based engine is developed to process
the status of a given bridge and alert the concerned operator/s
regarding any abnormality. Furthermore, an interactive Google
map is used to show the status of each bridge along with its exact
location. A prototype was built in the laboratory to validate the
proposed system. Analysis of testing results and comparisons
with existing monitoring systems are also discussed. Operators
can access the bridge real-time data through mobile phone. The
system is cost effective and user friendly.
Keywords—ZigBee; MEMS; WSN; Fuzzy Logic; NBI; GIS.
I. INTRODUCTION
Structures, including pipelines, aircraft, ships and civil
infrastructures, such as bridges, buildings, dams, among others,
are major parts of society’s economic and industrial success.
Bridges are one of the critical cross points of a country’s
transport network but they are expensive to build and maintain.
Bridges suffer overall structural deterioration due to aging,
overloading and lack of proper maintenance. For example,
more than 26%, or one in four, of the US’s bridges is either
structurally deficient or functionally obsolete [1]. Therefore
bridges are expected to have a higher level of reliable
inspection and condition assessment to protect human lives and
economic activities from unsafe bridge structures.
At present, visual inspections are the most common
practice used to monitor the structural integrity of bridges [2].
Mostly, this basic technique has proven to be inadequate to
ensuring bridge safety because it doesn’t provide enough
information to prevent the structure’s failures [3].
As Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are evolving in the
past decade and becoming more cost effective; civil engineers
with their counterparts in sensing and communications
technologies are seizing the opportunity to design, build and
implement continuous health monitoring tools for bridge
systems. Many recent studies were focused in developing
wireless sensor nodes and platforms for highway bridges [4]
[5] [6]. Among others, a ZigBee and Code division multiple
access (CDMA) prototype wireless sensor based systems for
bridge health monitoring are designed and tested [7]. A
structural health monitoring system of bridges using bias
magnetic field sensor, signal conditioning circuits and impulse
radio ultra –wideband transmitter was described in [8].
Moreover, a wireless measurement system using wireless
sensor network for large bridges was developed [9]. This latter
system consists of a build-in Micro-Electro Mechanical
Systems (MEMS) accelerometer signal conditioning circuit,
microcontroller chip, and central station. The bridge vibration
frequency was measured using a pendulum. In-house software
algorithm is developed to analyze the accelerometers that
reflect the structure vibration.
Several others wireless sensor networks based monitoring
systems centered on ZigBee as short range communication and
other long range communications were repeated [3] [10] [11].
The differences among these systems are the data processing
and the analysis algorithms to determine the health of the
structure (damage detection algorithm). Some of these
algorithms are based on the dynamic index method [12], static
displacement, or static curvature. Others applied wavelet
analysis [13], mode shape [10] [14] and neural networks [15].
Others used the expanded damage detection methods to
enhance the monitoring accuracy utilized genetic algorithms
[16] and Hilbert Huang Transfer (HHT) [17].
To complement the above mentioned systems, a real-time
online remote wireless bridge monitoring system is proposed
in this paper. The system collects the sensor’s data from an in-
service bridge; evaluates the bridge health status using a fuzzy
logic based system to evaluate the bridge’s health status.
Information with health history data is provided promptly for
bridge safety assessment, to help owners and maintenance
authorities make decisions in assigning maintenance budgets.
The overall proposed health monitoring system comprises
of hardware and software architectures. The hardware
architecture is mainly designed for the data collection process,

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 1st International Conference on Electrical and Information Technologies ICEIT’2015

communications, and data storage. The software architecture

with its components is together developed to support an
efficient and reliable operation of the complete system. Using a
fuzzy logic based engine, as damage detection algorithm, to
analyze the collected data and determine the structure status is
one of the major contributions in the proposed system. And by
utilizing the fuzzy logic concepts to classify the bridge
conditions with suggested attribute such as: acceptable,
marginal, serious, very serious and crash. These conditions are
classified based on the existing National Bridge Inventory
(NBI) rating scale, which is a database used for highway
management and resource allocation [18]. Another added value
to the proposed system is the early warning indicators by using
“web-based Google maps” colored markers, to display the real-
time status of the monitored bridge on the map.
II. SYSTEM HARWARE BASIC BUILDING BLOCKS Fig. 1 Overall system architecture
To design a wireless monitoring system for highway
bridges, functional and non-functional requirements should be TABLE I. SELECTED HARDWARE COMPONENTS
specified. For example, the system should use cost affective Requirements Model name Descriptions
off-the-shelf components, a two ways wireless Microcontroller Arduino Uno ATmega328 Based.
communications, Google maps to display the bridge’s real-
Communications link
time status and a storage device for historical database. The ZigBee module XBee-Series 1
between WSN nodes.
system should also be easy to operate and maintain, send early
warring indications to the operator mobile devices and the For the bridge’s ambient
Temp. Sensor TMP36 temperature
monitoring station. measurements.
To satisfy the above requirements, the proposed hardware 3-axis Structure’s acceleration
ADXL335
system must have two main units: a) wireless sensing and data Accelerometer in 3-axis measurements.
acquisitions unit b) processing and monitoring unit. A block GSM/GPRS Coordinator & public
diagram of the proposed system is presented in Fig. 1. SM5100B
modem cloud-based server link.
A. Wireless sensing and data acquisitions unit (W-DAQ) Server
Virtual Private 2GB RAM, 3TB/Month
Server and Quad Core CPU.
The W-DAQ unit consists of two slave nodes mounted on
two different places of the bridge and one master node Cellular Communication
(coordinator). Each slave node consists of 3-axis Antenna efficiency.
accelerometer; temperature sensor and ZigBee based Local Server Provider
microcontroller. These sensors give the nodes the ability to Others SIM / Internet
SIM card.
continuously monitor desired metrics (such as: surrounding
External
temperature and structure’s acceleration). The coordinator is a power
5V Power bank.
ZigBee based microcontroller that equipped with GSM/GPRS
modem. The master node receives the collected data from
slaves save them temporarily into a local buffer. The whole III. PROPOSED SYSTEM SOFTWARE ARCHITECTURE
process procedures should be done in real-time. Finally, an The proposed system software is divided into several
alarm system should be present to warn an abnormal behavior functional blocks to collect, transmit, log, process and asses the
or pending failure through a GIS user interface unit (web bridge status using a fuzzy logic based algorithm. In addition
application). to that, a friendly user graphical interface and google map
based GIS to display the real-time and historical status of the
B. The processing and monitoring unit (PMU)
monitor bridge. In the process, MATLAB fuzzy logic, database
The PMU essentially consists of two high-end servers and web service software tools were utilized to develop and
namely; private and public servers. The private server is in- test the system. Fig. 2 shows a high level conceptual software
house high end PC for data processing and local data logging. model for the proposed system.
The public server is a cloud based and it is utilized as software
and platform as services; it is used as a web application server
and redundant storage for the collected data. Table 1 provides a
brief discerption for the above mentioned components and
computing platforms.

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 1st International Conference on Electrical and Information Technologies ICEIT’2015
Fig. 2 Software Architecture
A. DAQ Embedded Software
The DAQ embedded software is developed to read the
monitored parameters from each slave node and queue the
latest 20 readings in round warp fashion. If any abnormality
in the bridge acceleration and temperature occurred; the master
coordinator starts collecting the queued data from each node
and frames it in a packet as shown in Fig. 3. The master
coordinator transmits the packet to the private server for
further processing and logging using the GSM “Hayes
Command Set” configurations [19]. Fig. 4 and 5 describe the
sequential processes that take place to transmit the collected
data to the private server.
Fig. 3 Data Packet frame contents
B. Private Server Middelware
The middleware has two major functions namely; the
receiving and logging, and the fuzzy logic algorithm to process
and evaluate the bridge status. Figure 5 shows the TCP/IP
socket flowchart and data logging flowchart.
A web application is developed to visualize the real-time
status of the bridge and display the historical status. The web
interface is an interactive tool that is based on the Google
Maps API, PHP web technology, and SOAP services. C#
based Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) service is used
to interact with MYSQL server to retrieve sensors readings and
with MATLAB through COM interface to evaluate the bridge
status information. The PHP webserver communicate with the
SOAP service to retrieve bridge status data and visualize it
with help of Google Maps API and PHP charting library.
Predominantly, the major function of the private server
middleware is the fuzzy logic algorithm that processes and
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gauges the bridge’s status. Essentially, there are two major
benefits for using fuzzy logic-based algorithms in structural
damage detection systems. One of these is the fact that the
system can be developed in spite of a lower number of data
sets and that the system can be adjusted with the introduction
of upgraded model. The benefit is the human experience-based
knowledge than can be employed to improve the assessment
process.
Fig. 4 Coordinator Operation Fig. 5 Server side algorithm
In the proposed system, two crisp inputs were used to feed
the fuzzifier namely; bridge accelerations (x, y, and y) in m/s2
and the surrounding temperature (ambient Temperature) in °C.
Membership functions were developed and mapped within
input variables. A set of rules was constructed using IF-AN-
THEN format. The defuzzification process output one of the
National Bridge Inspection Standards [18]. Figure 6 shows the
meta-model for the proposed fuzzy system.
Figure 6: “Meta-Model” based on proposed fuzzy logic System
There are three steps that are involved in the fuzzy logic
algorithm namely; fuzzification, rule-based inference engine
and defuzzification.
1) Fuzzification:
Fuzzification is a translation process of input into truth-
values. Input fields (attributes) are ambient temperature
(Temp) and structure acceleration (ACC). The TEMP input
variable is divided into 5 fuzzy sets namely; Cold, Normal,
Warm, Hot and very hot. While, based on simple calibration
and per the expert advice, ACC input field has 5 fuzzy sets
(Average, Attention, Warning, Dangerous and Collapsing).
Membership functions of both inputs are “trapezoidal”. Fig. 7
and 8 show the proposed membership functions along with
their ranges.
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Membership functions for these sets are triangular. The

membership functions’ details shown in Fig. 9 are associated
with colored attributes in web-based applications later on.
The root-sum-square (RSS) and fuzzy centroid algorithm
are employed to calculate the crisp value of the bridge-status
based on the number fired rules [20].
Fig. 7 Membership functions of the Temperature parameter
𝑅𝑆𝑆 = 𝑅! = (𝑅!! + 𝑅!! + 𝑅!! +  , … , 𝑅!! ) (2)
Where; R!! ,R!! ,  R!! ,…,  R!! are strength values of different
rules which share the same conclusion
For instance, the ambient temperature was set at 39°C and
structure acceleration was set at 7.45 m/s2. The corresponding
weights for the 39°C temperature are; (Cold=0.0, Normal=0.0,
Fig. 8 Membership functions of the Structure Acceleration parameters Warm=0.0, Hot=0.5 and Very-Hot=0.25). And for 7.45 m/s2
acceleration are; (Average=0.0, Attention=0.0, Warning=0.0,
Dangerous=0.25 and Collapsing=0.75). For this case, only four
rules (19, 20, 24 and 25) have non-zero results (fired). Let's
say, the AND operator min at work, evaluating the antecedent
of the rule 19 for the bridge-status calculation. The two
different parts of the antecedent ((Temp is Hot), and (ACC is
Dangerous)) produced the fuzzy membership values 0.5 and
0.25 respectively. Simply, the fuzzy AND operator selects the
Figure 9: Membership functions of the output variable (Bridge-Status) minimum of the two values, 0.25, then the fuzzy operation for
rule 19 is complete. The probabilistic AND method would still
2) Rule –Based Inference Engine: result in 0.25. This method will be applied for other rules to
The rule base is the main part in the fuzzy inference system get the probabilistic result strength (R20=0.5, R24=0.25, and
and the quality of results in a fuzzy system depends on the R25=0.5).
fuzzy rules. A set of fuzzy rules is assembled using: “if Using RSS method, the output “bridge-status” is calculated
<premises> Then <conclusion>” structure. The numbers of in the previous equation number 2:
rules were obtained using the following equation:
N = P1 × P2 ×………× PN (1) Crash      = R19 2 + R20 2 + R24 2 + R25 2                                         2
                       = 0.25 2 + 0.5 2 + 0.25 2 + 0.5 2 =0.790569
Where N is the total number of possible rules for the fuzzy
system and PN is the number of linguistic terms for the input By joining the results of the inference process and then
linguistic variable N. The rules were designed based on above figuring out the "fuzzy centroid" of the area, the data is
mentioned NBI. Since there are 5 member functions for both defuzzified into a crisp output. Using equation 3 where n is the
TEMP and ACC, the total number of rules is: N=5*5 = 25. number of output members; the production (actual output) of
Table 2 illustrates a snapshot of selected rules. these sets of inputs is revealed in the following [21] where n, is
the number of output members:
TABLE II. AN EXAMPLE OF THE FUZZY LOGIC RULES
!
!!! !"#$"%!  .  !"#$%&"!!
Rule Temperature Acceleration Status Output = !  !"#$%&"! (3)
!!! !
1 Normal Average Acceptable 0.790569415×0.5  
Bridge  Status Output = =0.50  
2 Normal A Attention T Marginal 0.790569415
I H
3
F
Very-Hot N Dangerous
E
Serious IV. IMPLEMENTATION AND TESTING
4 Hot D Collapsing N Crash To verify the proposed software, the fuzzy logic algorithm
….. ….. ….. …..
was simulated using the MATLAB fuzzy logic toolbox. The 25
proposed rules were emulated to mimic the bridge conditions.
25 Collapsing Collapsing Marginal The MATLAB results are shown in Fig. 10. For instance, if the
3) Defuzzification: input temperature was 39°C and the input acceleration was of
7.45 m/s2, the simulation would give a bridge-status weight of
The defuzzification process is a method of transferring the 0.505, which means the bridge-status is in crash condition.
rule-based engine result into a single output. Actually, there is This simulation result output weight of 0.505 matches and
one output variable “Bridge-Status”, which refers to the status conforms to the calculated weight of 0.50 with a marginal error
of the monitored bridge based on the NBI. The proposed has 5 of 0.505-0.50=0.005.
fuzzy sets for the output variable namely; Acceptable,
Marginal, Serious, Very Serious, and Crash Conditions. Table 3 demonstrates four different testing cases of the
“Bridge-Status” with different inputs. The error between the

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 1st International Conference on Electrical and Information Technologies ICEIT’2015

calculation results and the MATLAB results is considered to
be acceptable as long as the NBI result is the same.
After the successful installation of the sensors in the bridge
and applying the data evaluation module, we obtained result
variations that can be used to assess the overall bridge
condition. For example, Fig. 12 displays the overall bridge
assessment average percentage for each month of system
implementation phase period during 4 months in 2014.

Fig. 10 Simulation example “Bridge-Status = Crash”

TABLE 1
SIMULATION RESULTS VS. CALCULATION WITH ERROR

# Input Simulation Calculation Error

TEMP= 4 2.18 2.10

1 0.08
ACC= 3.85 Serious Fig. 12 Overall monthly bridge status (January - April 2014)

TEMP= 39 0.505 0.500 Essentially, the web application has two pages; the main
2 0.005
ACC= 7.45 Crash page and details page. The main page shows the bridge
location with colored marker as the color indicates the “bridge-
TEMP= 0 3.5 3.47
3 0.03 status” as described previously. Also, the last sensor readings
ACC= 1.5 Marginal for both two nodes are displayed. Fig. 13 contains four
TEMP= - 6 4.51 4.49
different real-time conductions tests and the result is displayed
4 0.02 on a GIS map along with the bridge NBI colored attributes.
ACC= 0.5 Acceptable Whilst, the details page (Fig. 14) shows the historical status of
the bridge, where the user can select the starting and ending
date of the requested interval along with node number and gets
A bridge prototype was built in the laboratory environment a chart showing the bridge/node status in that time interval.
as shown in Fig. 11. Since the two slave nodes are mounted in
two critical locations on the bridge, this has an added benefit
for offering a wide range of collected data. For the field test,
the objective was to use our proposed system to monitor real-
time bridge temperature and acceleration of the structure to
find out its final status then alert clients through web-based
application.

Fig. 11 bridge test bed prototype

Fig. 13: Web application first page

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 1st International Conference on Electrical and Information Technologies ICEIT’2015
Fig. 14 Web application second page (History Charts)
Cost wise, the proposed system can be delivered at almost
41% cheaper than WSN of SHM [22], and 62% more
economical than an embedded wireless system [23].
V. CONCLUSION
This paper proposed a fuzzy logic based wireless highway
bridge monitoring system. The system utilized a ZigBee based
data acquisition unit, a GPRS communication network and a
fuzzy logic algorithm. The simulation and the actual real-time
results were matched with acceptable error that did not alter the
health status of the bridge. Compared with other similar
systems, the proposed system more economical as well as easy
to operate and handle.
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