Maintaining and operating critical infrastructure systems is an essential task for our lives. Our development focuses on water management, transportation, and special building types within critical infrastructure, especially those with insufficient or non-existent power supply, which hinders communication channels. These facilities require significant human resources, time, and costly methods for proper supervision, making regular instrument inspections and general data analysis and transmission methods inapplicable. Additionally, examining structural elements in hard-to-access locations (such as below-ground foundations, elements covered by structures, wall structures, and sites posing a danger to human life) presents further challenges.
Our goal was to develop continuous remote sensing, monitoring, and control technology for the structural elements of a specific critical facility that cannot be inspected post-construction without demolition. We aimed to design specialized IoT sensors to measure pressure, displacement, cracks, vibrations, and moisture, and ensure the local power supply for these sensors. The collected data is transmitted via a relay station to a dedicated server, where it is archived. Based on preloaded parameters, the server program executes necessary interventions according to protocol specifications.
Failures due to the aging of critical infrastructure facilities can be challenging to detect locally, especially since current detection tools cannot accurately locate the issue within underground, concrete, or high-placed metal structures. Consequently, resolving such emergency situations often involves significant and time-consuming demolition and construction tasks. Therefore, exceptional attention must be given to the monitoring and operation of these facilities. Current technologies only allow for post-failure management of damages or vandalism, and fixing underground failures is highly costly and sacrificial. Thus, it is crucial to enable preventive examination and monitoring of these structures, a problem yet unsolved with current scientific advancements.
Our sensors integrated into the structural elements, along with the created IoT ecosystem, can detect emerging issues leading to specific failures (such as continuous monitoring of concrete moisture by humidity sensors, structural element status by corrosion detectors, and displacement of static elements by strain gauges). This data assessment allows for determining the intervention level, preventing severe damage. We developed software for the IoT ecosystem that manages intervention levels based on received values, ranging from preventive maintenance to repairs or demolition. The product developed from our prototype carries innovative technical knowledge that provides solutions for infrastructure operators, disaster, and civil protection by facilitating timely detection and precise failure location, significantly reducing intervention costs. Sysman Zrt. successfully implemented the project.