SmartSync: An Integrated Real-Time Structural Health Monitoring and Structural Identification System for Tall Buildings

This study introduces a unique prototype system for structural health monitoring (SHM), SmartSync, which uses the building’s existing Internet backbone as a system of virtual instrumentation cables to permit modular and largely plug-and-play deployments. Within this framework, data streams from distributed heterogeneous sensors are pushed through network interfaces in real time and seamlessly synchronized and aggregated by a centralized server, which performs basic data acquisition, event triggering, and database management while also providing an interface for data visualization and analysis that can be securely accessed. The system enables a scalable approach to monitoring tall and complex structures that can readily interface a variety of sensors and data formats (analog and digital) and can even accommodate variable sampling rates. This study overviews the SmartSync system, its installation/operation in the world’s tallest building, Burj Khalifa, and proof-of-concept in triggering under dual excitations (wind and earthquake).