Sensor agent robot with servo-accelerometer for structural health monitoring

SHM systems are becoming feasible with the growth of computer and sensor technologies during the last decade. However, high implantation cost prevents SHM from becoming common in general buildings. The reason of this high cost is partially due to many accelerometers. In this research, we propose a mobile sensor agent robot with accelerometers and a laser range finder (LRF). If this robot can properly measure accurate acceleration data, the cost of SHM would be cut down and the SHM systems would become common. Our goal is to develop a platform for SHM using the sensor agent robot. We designed the prototype robot to detect the floor vibrations and acquire the micro tremor information correctly. When the sensor agent robot is set in the mode of acquiring the data, the dynamics of the robot should be tuned not to be affected by its flexibility. To achieve this purpose the robot frame was modified to move down to the floor and to provide enough rigidity to obtain good data. In addition to this mechanism, we tested an algorithm to know the location of the robot and the map of the floor correctly to be used in the SHM system using the LRF and Simultaneously Localization and Mapping (SLAM).