Power Self-Sustained Wireless Bridge Deformation Monitoring System Based on Solar Photovoltaic

Bridges are critical elements of contemporary civil infrastructure. The operational and environmental factors can cause inevitable impacts on the serviceability and safety of a bridge. This paper has developed a wireless bridge deformation measurement system to monitor the bridge health condition in real-time, which achieves wireless connectivity for communication. Meanwhile, a self-sustained power supply is designed based on a solar photovoltaic (PV) system, removing the conventional power cables or the frequent battery replacement operation, which reduces the installation and maintenance cost and enables a long-term 24 hours × 7 days uninterrupted operation. The detailed power supply design procedure is provided, including the selection of the solar panel and battery, as well as the design of the dc-dc converter for the constant-current (CC) and constant-voltage (CV) charging of a lithium battery. Experiments validate the effectiveness of the developed wireless bridge deformation monitoring system and the designed power supply. It is shown that without using the PV system, the bridge deformation monitoring system can last for 24 days, which helps the system to survive extreme weather conditions. With the help of the PV system, the battery is always maintained at a fully charged condition, validating the self-sustainability of the designed power supply.