IoT Monitoring for Urban Infrastructure: A Growing Necessity

When it comes to infrastructures and building, structural monitoring is essential to prevent or predict any type of damage that can sometimes lead to dramatic consequences. Equipping dams, bridges, railways, tunnels, rock formations or buildings with sensors during construction or after accidents is not a new idea. But today engineers are increasingly reliable. on IOT technology to know more about how IOT is being used in this field we met with Josep Carles Teres from Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya following the 2021 crash in which a train drove into some rocks that had fallen on the tracks the public company decided to have some sensors installed to monitor the state of the problematic rock mass. FGC teamed up with the Institute Cartographic and World Sensing to install five IoT sensors along the risk area to prevent possible uncontrolled collapses and ensure the safety of both the infrastructure and its users. The data collected by the sensors is transmitted via LoRaWAN connectivity. From an organizational point of view, the use case has had an impact on FTC's efficiency. Evidentemente, if you have a continuous vision of the state of the infrastructure, you know in which moment, first, you ahorrar resources because you don't have to replace it. The project wouldn't have been possible without the Institute Cartografic who installed the census. high up on the rock mass and monitors the collected data. If the sensors record movements or collapses, there are two different courses of action. because it doesn't mean that nothing has fallen, and an ad hoc inspection is made. We could be talking about about 50.000 euros, which could have cost to display those 5 sensors plus the control platform that we are using to monitor the state of those sensors. At the level of technology architecture, we see that it's very reliable, robust, so at the moment we're happy with the test. Due to the potential of this technology which is becoming more and more important extreme weather changes become more regular the european investment bank granted world sensing a 10 million euro loan to carry out further developments to learn more about this we visited world sensing in barcelona we support the integration of geotechnical sensors that typically some of them are already deployed on the field so what we're willing to support is the wire connection to our notes and our nodes are the ones who are remotely and wirelessly connected to the IoT environment. So we have some nodes that support these kind of sensors which are already deployed in the field and they are probably validated along the years, but we are also offering into the market several nodes which have an integrated sensor. So for example, that they have already both the sensor and the IoT node, which sends the data that is being captured from the sensor wirelessly to the IoT platform. Another project that World Sensing has been involved in is the works at the Metropole du Grand Paris Metro. They embedded sensors in the tunnel linings about seven levels deep during the preparation of the concrete segment. while the excavations were in progress. This allowed the engineering team to monitor the structure during the works and after completions, which resulted in considerable savings. The benefits of connected infrastructure technology go well beyond convenience and financial savings on maintenance and cabling. The connectors connected are a new technology that allows us to ensure better... the security of the goods and people. Today, an entire neighbourhood in the village of Reisuroya is being monitored with IOT by Asta BTP due to unstable soils that are threatening the integrity of the buildings. Currently, we have set up a capture material that allows us to follow all these movements and also interpret, I would say, the different zones of placement. I would say that it is both surveillance, but it also serves to prove the right solutions in fonction of the different disorders that we can see on the works. FeelBat is one of the companies that provide Asta BTP with its IoT Center for Geotechnical and Structural Monitoring. Their offer is different though, since it's basically plug -and -play and targets house owners, or small municipalities with a limited budget. The sensors are sold at a lower price than others and they combine Bluetooth and Sigfox connectivity. This capture allows you to measure the variation in the two senses. Bluetooth allows for proximity reading on cell phones and Sigfox connectivity is for longer distances. The cover of Sigfox is satisfying, but it is also that Sigfox is supposed to buy packages and from there, I delegated the packages to my clients who are free to be able to use them. So with aging infrastructure and extreme climate variations, it seems that the demand for IoT Geo technical and structural monitoring is awakening interest. For more information and other stories, don't forget to follow up on Current Insights.