NTU-CEE Distinguished Seminar Series: Professor Hoon Sohn
A novel, cost-effective, and high-accuracy displacement sensor.
About the Seminar
Topic: Low-cost and high-accuracy displacement sensor for civil infrastructure structural health monitoring Structural
Structural displacement is a critical physical quantity for monitoring civil infrastructure. The importance of this measurement has driven the development of numerous dedicated sensors and sensing technologies. This study presents a novel, cost-effective, and high-accuracy displacement sensor.
Its architecture comprises an integrated frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) radar, a microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) accelerometer, a microcontroller unit (MCU), a wireless data transmission module, and a power supply unit. Through the synergistic fusion of data from the FMCW radar and MEMS accelerometer, the sensor attains exceptional displacement measurement performance with an accuracy better than 0.1 mm. Significant cost reduction was realized by leveraging a readily available FMCW radar chip, prevalent in autonomous vehicle systems, alongside an off-the-shelf MEMS accelerometer, projecting a unit cost under $1,000.
Acquired and processed data are wirelessly disseminated to a range of client devices, such as mobile phones, laptops, and desktop computers, via diverse wireless protocols including Wi-Fi, LTE, and LoRa. The sensor operation is facilitated by a flexible power system, drawing energy from either a rechargeable lithium battery or an integrated solar panel, enabling fully self-contained and autonomous operation. The utility of this sensor spans multiple critical applications, encompassing:
- Continuous monitoring of road and rail bridges for early warning of collapses and impending hazards,
- Automated in-situ evaluations for bridge rating,
- Spatio-temporal displacement characterisation utilising distributed and nondedicated telecommunication cables, and
- Structural integrity testing of a real nuclear power plant.
About the Speaker
Professor Hoon Sohn, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
Hoon Sohn received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from Seoul National University, Seoul Korea and Ph.D. from Stanford University all in Civil Engineering. He worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) as a Technical Staff Member and at Carnegie Mellon University as an Assistant Professor. He is now a Professor at KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology) in South Korea, and an Executive Director at Korea Railway Innovation Institute under Korea National Railway.
His research interest has been in the areas of structural health monitoring, nondestructive testing, sensing technologies and data analytics. He has published over 280 refereed journal articles, over 400 conference proceedings, and 12 book & book chapters. He is holding 58 domestic and 28 international patents, and his developed technologies are licensed and commercialized by private companies, resulting in over 1.5 Million USD licensing agreements. He is currently SPIE Fellow, Member of National Academy of Engineering of Korea (NAEK), and Member of Korean Academy of Science and Technology (KAST).
Venue
CEE Seminar Room A (N1-B1b-06)