A Real-Time and Low-Cost Flash Flood Monitoring System to Support Transportation Infrastructure

When a disaster strikes, such as a flood, it is difficult, even impossible for transportation authority and first responders to get access to real-time information of every structure (highway bridges and connected roads) in a timely fashion. The information is needed to perform short-term predictions and support emergency/rescue activities. To mitigate the challenge, the proposed research aims to develop an autonomous and real-time structural health monitoring system (SHM) using low cost off-the-shelf wireless sensors. The wireless sensors upon deployment will collaborate to form an autonomous wireless sensor network (WSN) and relay a high-resolution structural health data to transport engineers in real-time. Such up-to-date information can assist the department of transportation (DOT), the city, first responders as well as rescues authorities such as 911 to determine the sensitive spots and prioritize recovery activities intended to rescue lives, restore essential services and identify repair damages requiring an emergency fix