An Internet observatory: Remote monitoring of instrumented civil structures using the information superhighway

The requirements of sensor monitoring associated with instrumented civil structures pose potential logistical constraints on manpower, training and costs. The need for frequent or even continuous data monitoring places potentially severe constraints on overall system performance given real-world factors such as available manpower, geographic separation of the instrumented structures, and data archiving as well as the training and cost issues. While the pool of available low-wage, moderate-skill workers available to the authors is sizable (undergraduate engineering students), the level of performance of such workers is quite variable leading to data acquisition integrity and continuity issues-matters that are not acceptable in the practical field implementation of such developed systems. In the case of acquiring data from the numerous sensors within the civil structures which the authors have instrumented (e.g., a multistorey building, roadway/railway bridges, and a hydroelectric dam), the authors have found that many of these concerns may be alleviated through the use of an automated data acquisition system which archives the acquired information in an electronic location remotely accessible through the Internet global computer network. It is therefore possible for the data monitoring to be performed at a remote location with the only requirements for data acquisition being Internet accessibility. A description of the developed scheme is presented as well as guiding philosophies.