Monitoring heritage buildings with wireless sensor networks: the Torre Aquila deployment

Matteo Ceriotti*, Luca Mottola, Gian Pietro Picco, Amy L. Murphy, Ştefan Gunǎ, Michele Corrà, Matteo Pozzi, Daniele Zonta, Paolo Zanon

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution book

260 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Wireless sensor networks are untethered infrastructures that are easy to deploy and have limited visual impact - a key asset in monitoring heritage buildings of artistic interest. This paper describes one such system deployed in Torre Aquila, a medieval tower in Trento (Italy). Our contributions range from the hardware to the graphical front-end. Customized hardware deals efficiently with high-volume vibration data, and specially-designed sensors acquire the building's deformation. Dedicated software services provide: i) data collection, to efficiently reconcile the diverse data rates and reliability needs of heterogeneous sensors; ii) data dissemination, to spread configuration changes and enable remote tasking; iii) time synchronization, with low memory demands. Unlike most deployments, built directly on the operating system, our entire software layer sits atop our TeenyLIME middleware. Based on 4 months of operation, we show that our system is an effective tool for assessing the tower's stability, as it delivers data reliably (with loss ratios <0.01%) and has an estimated lifetime beyond one year.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publication2009 International Conference on Information Processing in Sensor Networks, IPSN 2009
Place of PublicationNew York
Pages277-288
Number of pages12
Publication statusPublished - 2009
Event2009 International Conference on Information Processing in Sensor Networks, IPSN 2009 - San Francisco, CA, United States
Duration: 13 Apr 200916 Apr 2009

Conference

Conference2009 International Conference on Information Processing in Sensor Networks, IPSN 2009
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CitySan Francisco, CA
Period13/04/0916/04/09

Keywords

  • heritage buildings
  • middleware
  • wireless sensor networks

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