Implementation of a Low-Cost, Distributed, Absolute Time Reference in an application dedicated to damage detection

Abstract

Typical structural health monitoring configuration implies sensors and supervisor installations connected by electric cable for communication. As done in other wireless projects, this one aim at reducing installation and maintenance costsby designing a wireless sensor network. One of the problem when designing wireless sensors, is data tagging: an event has to be correctly dated by many sensors. This problem increases when a precise time stamping is required. What distinguishes this project is the implementation of algorithms that allows precise time stamping by the use of a standard protocol and the separation between measurements operations and communication task in order to make modular sensors.