Smartphone-based Real-Time Bridge Health Monitoring System for Smart Cities 4.0 using Four-Wheeled Robot and Indirect Vibrational Data from Moving Vehicles

This paper introduces a system for real-time monitoring and evaluation of bridge by utilizing smartphones as sensors in moving vehicles. The goal is to detect potential damage in the bridge using indirect vibrational data. The framework involves gathering vibration data from smartphones and a sensor network placed in vehicles crossing the bridges. By comparing this data with Global Positioning System (GPS) information for the corresponding bridge, it becomes possible to identify any damages. To validate the proposed approach, both laboratory and real-life experiments were conducted. In the lab, data was collected using a smartphone with two accelerometers mounted on a robot car. Additionally, real-life data was gathered using smartphones and a sensor network with varying distributions and numbers of nodes. The results indicate that the method successfully determines the similarity of vibrations in the same bridge along the same axis, thus validating the proposed methodology.