Case Studies

Structural Health Monitoring with National Instruments LabVIEW

Structural Monitoring
Posted in Application Development, Infrastructure, Internet of Things (IoT), LabVIEW, Test & Measurement Automation

Summary

DMC was approached by a Structural Engineering and Architecture firm to develop a system for remote data acquisition and monitoring. The need was to have accurate collection with automatic triggering and synchronization of data. DMC worked with the client to specify and implement Data Acquisition hardware from National Instruments, and developed and commissioned software to provide critical in-field data for structural assessment and design feedback.

Wireless Data Acquisition

Wireless Data Acquisition

Solution

DMC developed and enabled a LabVIEW-based data acquisition and logging system with WiFi-based DAQ hardware from National Instruments. The hardware selected for each DAQ station was WLS-9205 Data Acquisition modules using WLS 9163 carriers. Each DAQ station collects and broadcasts structural health data on the data acquisition network, which is received, displayed and logged at the LabVIEW application.

The solution is also scalable – the Client had an immediate need for short term field testing, which was achieved with a laptop-based DAQ system. Longer term, the system can easily be scaled up to a semi-permanent real-time monitoring and logging system capable of collecting continuous and event-based data over long periods of time.

Learn more about DMC's LabVIEW programming services.

Customer Benefits

  • Accurate and reliable field data
  • IoT capabilities including real-time monitoring for live assessment
  • Historical logging for long term trend analysis and decision making
  • Automatically triggered data collection for effective use of in-field resources
  • Scalable software architecture – additional collection stations can easily be added
  • Can be run from laptop as a field tool or implemented for long term collection and logging

Technologies

  • National Instruments LabVIEW software
  • Wireless data acquisition hardware from National Instruments
  • Multiple collection sites with critical timing and synchronization
  • Variable data collection rates with event-based logging capability