Pavement Monitoring with a Wireless Sensor Network of MEMS Accelerometers

This paper proposes a wireless sensor network for monitoring pavements based on displacement measurements. The sensor is a MEMS accelerometer used to calculate the vertical displacement of the pavement surface, based on dual time integration of the measured vertical vibrations and appropriate signal processing. A laboratory test mimicking the movement of a five-axle truck was first carried out to validate the system developed and the signal processing. A test on a real roadway using a fork-lift truck was then carried out with the device embedded in the pavement. Both the results obtained with the vibrating table and in realistic conditions show that the proposed detection system is capable of making accurate displacement measurements.