Managing the historical heritage using distributed technologies

In this article we outline a research effort aiming to develop technological tools for real-time risk management of historic buildings. In detail, the project includes 1) the development of a prototype Historical Heritage Management System (HHMS), with 2) the technological and conceptual tools for integrating this HHMS with real-time monitoring, and 3) the demonstrative application of a pilot monitoring system, working within this framework, to a case study, the Aquila Gate in Trento. Motes network sensors are the basis of the monitoring system. We show that the risk-updating methodology proposed is able to deal with all the uncertainties involved (measurement noise, model uncertainty, inaccurate prior information) and to early-warn the manager of any possible future failure condition.