October 2005, Singapore

Ubiquitous Real Time Monitoring and Alert applied to Excavation Works

GUAN HONG TAN, YE KONG POH, MAX STRINGER SysEng (S) Pte Ltd, SINGAPORE syseng@singnet.com.sg JAMES MW BROWNJOHN UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD, UNITED KINGDOM, James.brownjohn@sheffield.ac.uk ABSTRACT As cities expand to Mega cities, new higher buildings, additional roads, expanded highway bridges and underground structures will be built to increase land utilization and transportation capacities. These trends increase the demand for the Ubiquitous Real Time Monitoring and Alert Systems of adjacent buildings and infrastructures to minimize the construction risks and insurance costs. In modern cities, the infrastructures for the Internet and Wire-less communications have more extensive coverage due to the consumer demands for Mobile phones and Internet access. Today Mobile Internet is already a reality for users to access information anytime and anywhere, a ubiquitous environment, such as news, share prices, games and emails. By leveraging this Mobile Internet infrastructure, sensors in any excavation work can be integrated into a Ubiquitous Real Time Monitoring and Alert system for monitoring structural and soil movements. With the shortening of construction schedules, work progresses continuously for 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. Hence the monitoring has to also follow with continuous Real Time Monitoring and Alert. With the Mobile Internet, the users can then have these missioncritical information deliver to their personal mobile devices such as Mobile Phones and Pocket PCs. Today wire-less networks are already common in businesses and homes to provide a ubiquitous experience, making this technology more acceptable to the more traditional construction industry. This ubiquitous information demand will fully automate the monitoring and alert systems to send the right information, to the right location, to right person to make the right decision for any actions to be taken. The paper will discuss the integrated multi-discipline system approach and the challenges in implementing an outdoor full-scale Ubiquitous sensor network used in the monitoring struts in excavation site. Keywords: Ubiquitous Real Time Monitoring Alert M2M Wireless GPRS

Ubiquitous Real Time Monitoring and Alert applied to Excavation Works

October 2005, Singapore

1. INTRODUCTION The transformation of cities to Mega cities will pose new challenges as old building will be replaced with new higher buildings, roads will be expanded with more highway bridges, and underground structures will be built to increase land utilization and transportation capacities. In all modern cities, the Internet and Wire-less communications infrastructures have more extensive coverage. This forms the basis to provide Ubiquitous Real Time Monitoring and Alert systems, as the same public infrastructure will now carry mission critical data from sensor to the end user mobile devices instantly. Today Mobile Internet is already a reality for user to access information anytime and anywhere globally, a ubiquitous environment, such as news, stock prices, games and emails. With the shortening of construction schedules, work progresses continuously for 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. Hence the monitoring has to also follow with continuous Real Time Monitoring and Alert. With the Mobile Internet, the users can then have these mission-critical information deliver to their personal mobile devices such as Mobile Phones and Pocket PCs. Wire-less networks are already common in businesses and homes to provide a Ubiquitous experience. This will fully automate the monitoring and alert system to send the right information to the right person to make the right decision for any actions to be taken. To provide the user with Ubiquitous environment, the whole information chain must be examine such that the entire information flow challenges can be analyzed from the sensor information until they reach the user mobile devices, for the sensor data upload and data download via wire-less means. 2. REAL TIME MONITORING AND ALERT SYSTEM

Fig 1. A typical Real Time Monitoring and Alert System Vibrating Wire Strain Gages (VWSG) are installed at the struts to measure the strut forces. Data loggers are used for collecting VWSG data from construction sites continuously at every 10 minutes intervals and upload to a website. The Geotechnical and Structural designers require the data for

Ubiquitous Real Time Monitoring and Alert applied to Excavation Works

October 2005, Singapore

analyzing the behavior of the construction sequence and system. The data from the same VSWG sensors from sites can now be shared. The site staff now can make real time judgment during the excavation process, where the reaction time is very short for remedial action. Figure 1 shows the Real Time Monitoring and Alert system described by Tan (2004) using Machine-to-Machine (M2M) technologies. In this system, a wire-less General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) modem is used to transmit the data from the data logger to the central server. GPRS is used as an always-connected wire-less communication system. In this system, the monitoring and alert response time is in the order of minutes time scale. Real time is only meaningful when the actual sensor readings are taken and then send to the end-users in minutes. Today, many real time systems narrowly define the time from when the data of the office computer is sending out to various end-users and it neglects the time delay, which could be in hours, when the VWSG sensor data uploads to central server. The GPRS data speed is 32,000 bps, which is very much faster than the GSM of 9,600 bps. This makes it suitable for wire-less real time monitoring and alert systems. The cost for using GPRS network depends on the amount of data transfer. The data logger is always connected to the central server. Data can be transmitted between the logger and server immediately when the last channel of sensor is measured. Hence, there is no connection time delay. The information can then be access by multiple users through the Internet. Through the use of Infocomm Technologies (IT) and Internet technologies in instrumentation and monitoring, engineers and decision makers could access to the data from their desktops or notebooks from anywhere in the world as mentioned by Alaghehbandian (2003) and Radulescu (2003). 3. THE CHALLENGES OF REAL TIME MONITOING AND ALERT SYSTEM With Real Time Monitoring, the sensor data streams into the central server system at a high data rate. Traditional manual monitoring and alert system will experience user information overload if a manual EXCEL spreadsheet based system is used. The computer system will slow down and manually the user cannot cope up with the high data rate. Hence a fully automated information flow system is a solution to overcome such a challenge. In a Real Time Monitoring site in a excavation site, the Real Time Monitoring and Alert system monitors 92 Vibrating Wire Strain Gage (VW SG) and 4 Load Cells readings every 10 minutes. Two VW SGs monitor a strut with its individual temperature sensor and the Load Cell has 4 VW SGs and 1 Temperature sensor. Hence there is a total of 92 VW+ 92T + 4 x 4 VWSG + 4 T = 1,840 sensor readings per 10 minute measurement cycle. The data rate is then 1840x 6 x 24 = 264,960 data points per day. In an EXCEL spreadsheet system, the system will be overloaded. One solution to overcome EXCEL limitations is to use a more efficient software development platform such as C.

Ubiquitous Real Time Monitoring and Alert applied to Excavation Works

October 2005, Singapore

Fig 2. Sensor Level movements in time sequence At high-volume data rate in the real time system, any sensor noise or intermittent failure will cause unnecessary alerts. Fig 2 shows sensor level movements in time sequence. In Real Time Monitoring system, when the sensor level exceeds the Alert Trigger Level, SMS will be sent out. However, if the sensor data only exceeds this threshold only once, it is most likely that this sensor reading contains false readings caused by noise. But on the other hand, if the sensor readings maintain above the Alert Trigger limit, then the sensor reading must trigger an SMS alert. With a manual system, the amount of data is insufficient and slow to provide a re-confirmation within minutes that there is a trigger alert as the manual data collection and analysis cycle time is usually in the order of hours. There is a need for a Monitoring System Design Strategy to overcome false alert and prevent user overload. In a manual system where the readings are done twice per day, there will be 3,680 readings per day. A 0.1% false reading means 4 false alerts. For the same 0.1% false readings in 264,960 real time data, it will mean 265 false readings, which are unacceptable for Quality data. Using a Real time monitoring and alert system will improve the Quality standards of the instrument service provider, as the user will have higher quality expectation in the whole process of sensor installation, cabling, grounding, system setup, commissioning and monitoring. A monitoring system deployed by the authors were used in an excavation site over 18 months and had 143,078,400 VWSG data collected. The total false alert readings over that period was 1,203 and they were mainly in the initial stage of familiarization by the contractor. This works out to be 8 false readings per million readings as a Data Quality index. As the sensors and electronics are used in outdoor environment, noise is a perpetual problem causing false SMS alerts. Noise can cause the sensor readings to increase or

Ubiquitous Real Time Monitoring and Alert applied to Excavation Works

October 2005, Singapore

decrease from their actual values. Hence the alert levels have upper and lower bounds assigned to each sensor.

Fig 3. Strut forces time series readings over days Field results of Fig 3 from a site show that the VWSG readings for strut at Level 1 strut 1 have very clean readings while for those strut at Level 1 Strut 4 shows noisy VWSG readings. By compressing the time scale, these strut force readings have now been interpreted as a waveform for signal analysis where the rules of digital signal processing come into consideration. Traditionally when the user takes only a few reading per day, such time series information is not available for analysis. At every 10 minutes, the sensor readings stream to a central server in continuous. If there is a trigger event as shown in Fig 4. The system will send SMS alerts, but that point which exceeds the trigger value might be a true reading or a false trigger caused by noise. After that trigger and if the next measurement cycle exceeds the trigger limit, then the site engineers take it with more attention. However if the next cycle, the sensor readings drop, then it is classified as a false trigger. Various smart alert algorithms can be used but however the choice is always by the end users. By integrating the sensors into the Ubiquitous environment, it requires a cross-disciplinary engineering team, which has to understand each others objectives, constraints, risks and maintenance effort in the system. The engineering skills from the domain expertise of Structural and Geotechnical, Electronics, Communications and Software to design and maintain the system through out the entire life span of the project.

Ubiquitous Real Time Monitoring and Alert applied to Excavation Works

October 2005, Singapore

4. UBIQUITOUS ENVIRONMENT FOR DELIVERING DATA INTO THE HANDS OF THE END USERS In Fig 1, the users receive SMS text alerts on their mobile phones and they require a PC connected to the Internet to view and analyze the sensor historical trend. Fig 4 shows the SMS Alert text message while the time chart data is taken from a PC website screen shot. By linking the server data to the new generation of Mobile phones and Pocket PCs, which have larger graphical displays, the sensor charts can now be delivered as shown in Fig 5. Both mobile devices are growing tremendously and this platform makes it easier for the sensor data to be delivered in the Ubiquitous environment on the same unit.

Fig 4 SMS Alert on a mobile phone and screen shot of a PC Internet Web interface

Fig 5 Crack sensor time chart displayed on an Ericsson Mobile phone and a HP iPAQ Pocket PC

Ubiquitous Real Time Monitoring and Alert applied to Excavation Works

October 2005, Singapore

5. BENEFITS OF UBIQUITOUS REAL TIME MONITORING AND ALERT SYSTEM The main advantage of the Ubiquitous Real Time Monitoring and Alert system is obviously the Real Time alert where the site staff gets urgent data instantly when sensors exceed their limits. The other benefit is to provide the users and designers the actual on-site forces acting on the struts when construction works progresses. This increases the productivity of the Geotechnical consultants by having their verification of the design via the Internet instead of visiting the site, which could be hours drive away. The data is also shared with multiple users and this makes collaborative work easier across the globe. This brings the important site data into the hands of the users via wire-less communication technologies of Mobile Internet, hence reducing the unproductive time of traveling to site to retrieve data or requiring a PC for data access. It also helps to raise the Data Quality standards as it impose new challenges to provide Reliable Data timely to all stake holders of the project. 6. CONCLUSION Data Loggers have been used in monitoring systems for many years, especially for projects, which required continuous monitoring. They are mainly used for design verification, monitoring, investigation works and research. Using M2M technologies of wireless communications, Mobile Internet devices and services, these monitoring systems have evolved into a Ubiquitous Real Time Monitoring and Alert systems, where the information are needed in a matter of minutes rather than hours at any time and anywhere. Using available proven technologies, Mission Critical Real Time Monitoring and Alert systems are used to monitor and deliver information from the sensor until the end users in minutes. When the sensor readings exceed their predefined limits, the system automatically sends SMS alerts to multiple users within minutes. The Ubiquitous system delivers the important information onto the mobile devices of the users. This compression of the total delivery time, from the remote site sensor to the user, is useful to inform site problems immediately for critical projects so that preventive actions can be mobilize faster. It gives users more reaction time to organize, to investigate and to prevent collapses or failures rather than having data to confirm that the site had problems. With the wider acceptance of Mobile Internet technologies by the consumer sector, the relevant technologies have become easily accessible for wider deployment in the civil engineering sector. This forms a new cluster of Ubiquitous mission critical monitoring and real time alert systems based upon the M2M technologies. REFERENCES Tan G.H. Ng T.G. and Brownjohn, J. ,2004. Real Time Monitoring and Alerts Systems for Civil Engineering Applications using Machine-to-Machine

Ubiquitous Real Time Monitoring and Alert applied to Excavation Works

October 2005, Singapore

Technologies, International Conference on Structural and Foundation Failures, 2 4 August 2004. Alaghehbandian, A., Abe, M. and Fujino, Y.,2003. An Internet Orientated Platform for Structural Health Monitoring, Proceedings of First International Conference on Structural Health Monitoring and Intelligent Infrastructure, 13-15 November 2003, Tokyo, Japan, pp. 339-344. Radulescu, D.C., Radulescu, C. and Sereci, A.M. ,2003 Structural health monitoring 24/7 broadcasting system, Proceedings of First International Conference on Structural Health Monitoring and Intelligent Infrastructure 1315 November 2003, Tokyo, Japan, pp. 971-976

Ubiquitous Real Time Monitoring and Alert applied to Excavation Works