Development of a Smart Building Monitoring System

Recent advancements in sensor technology and computing power have significantly transformed Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) and Structural Dynamics Monitoring (SDM). These innovations now facilitate real-time monitoring of urban areas, critical infrastructure, and major buildings for structural health, dynamic behavior, and occupant safety. SHM specializes in long-term structural damage detection, while SDM monitors dynamic responses to external influences like seismic activity and occupant movement. The adoption of these systems in smart buildings is enhancing both structural integrity and occupant safety.

At Tennessee Technological University's Ashraf Islam Engineering Building (AIEB), cutting-edge SDM systems were strategically embedded during construction. These systems use accelerometers and strain gages to measure localized human-induced vibrations, such as footsteps, as well as large-scale events like seismic activity. Besides improving safety, these monitoring systems offer potential applications in areas like occupant tracking, fall detection, and energy management. The AIEB system also addresses key research challenges, such as wave propagation in complex environments and combined strain-acceleration data for seismic monitoring, providing important insights for building safety and human interaction research.