A low cost wireless sensor node for building monitoring

In this paper a medium-high performance wireless sensor node based on low-cost Micro Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) accelerometers for Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) applications is proposed. The objective of the work is the estimation of the performances of the low cost MEMS system for SHM with a possible application on a pervasive permanent monitoring of buildings in seismic prone regions often affected by earthquakes. The work aims at improving the sensing technology involved in the dynamic identification and SHM, with the intent to reduce the overall cost of acquisition's system and to make faster the tests procedure. Preliminary experimental tests performed to compare the performance of the proposed system with those of a typical high-performance and expensive wired system, are presented and discussed.