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In this paper, we propose a wireless sensor network for pavement health monitoring exploiting the Zigbee technology. Accelerometers are adopted to measure local accelerations linked to pavement vibrations, which are then converted into displacements by a signal processing algorithm. Each device consists of an on-board unit buried in the roadway and a roadside unit. The on-board unit comprises a microcontroller, an accelerometer and a Zigbee module that transfers acceleration data wirelessly to the roadside unit. The roadside unit consists of a Raspberry Pi, a Zigbee module and a USB Zigbee adapter. Laboratory tests were conducted using a vibration table and with three different accelerometers, to assess the system capability. A typical displacement signal from a five-axle truck was applied to the vibration table with two different displacement peaks, allowing for two different vehicle speeds. The prototyped system was then encapsulated in PVC packaging, deployed and tested in a real-life road situation with a fatigue carousel featuring rotating truck axles. The laboratory and on-road measurements show that displacements can be estimated with an accuracy equivalent to that of a reference sensor.

This Issue of Engineering Proceedings assembles the papers presented at the 10th International Electronic Conference on Sensors and Applications (ECSA-10), held online on 15–30 November 2023 through the sciforum [...]

In submitting conference proceedings to Engineering Proceedings, the volume editors of the proceedings certify to the publisher that all papers published in this volume have been subjected to peer review administered by the volume editors [...]

This Issue of Engineering Proceedings assembles the papers presented at the 9th International Electronic Conference on Sensors and Applications (ECSA-9), held online on 1–15 November 2022, through the sciforum [...]

Safety related to pavement ageing is a major issue, as cracks and holes in the road surface can lead to severe accidents. Although pavement maintenance is extremely costly, detecting a deterioration before its surface becomes completely damaged remains a challenge. Current approaches still use wired sensors, which consume a lot of energy and are expensive; further to that, wired sensors may become damaged during installation. To avoid the use of cables, in this work, a prototype of a Zigbee-based wireless sensor network for pavement monitoring was developed and tested in the laboratory. The system consists of a slave sensor and a roadside unit; the slave sensor sends wireless acceleration data to the master, and the master saves the received acceleration dataset in a csv file. Further data processing can be performed in the master on this acceleration dataset. Two laboratory tests were performed for dynamic calibration and simulating five-axle truck pavement displacement. The preliminary results showed that the Zigbee-based wireless sensor network is capable of capturing the required ranges of displacement, acceleration, and frequency. The ADXL354 sensor was found to be the most appropriate accelerometer for this application, with as small as 155 uA power consumption.