ImaB-Edge

The Challenge

Engineering structures such as bridges, sewage treatment plants, or dams are essential elements of technical infrastructure and are therefore of the highest logistical and economic relevance. At the same time, their conscientious maintenance is indispensable for the safety of thousands of people. Numerous solutions exist for this, but they require either significant personnel and material resources or substantial cloud storage space. The increasing number of networked devices and sensors, the "Internet of Things" (IoT), enables diverse and new applications, but also results in a rapidly growing volume of data.

The Project

In this project, a modularly configurable on-site system ("ImaB-Edge") is to be developed as an alternative to current solutions, specifically for the predictive maintenance of critical infrastructure. Processing data at its point of origin (edge computing) helps to handle it efficiently and strengthens the functionality, sustainability, trustworthiness, and economic efficiency of electronic applications through the use of artificial intelligence and networking. Infrastructure operators, research and testing facilities for building materials, hardware producers, software developers, and construction companies are working together on a complete system solution for monitoring critical infrastructure structures. In addition to highway bridges, critical conditions or significant changes in railway facilities, tunnels, dams, etc., are to be detected early in the future so that appropriate measures can be initiated.

The Results

The ImaB-Edge project successfully demonstrated that decentralized, intelligent structural monitoring using edge computing and artificial intelligence is feasible. The developed system solution enables the processing of large amounts of sensor data directly on-site and the efficient extraction of relevant information.

Through the combination of robust sensor technology, networked hardware, and intelligent data analysis, damage and changes can be detected early, and well-founded prognoses about structural behavior can be made. This reduces the need for manual inspections while minimizing data transmission and storage efforts.

The results were validated under realistic conditions and clearly demonstrate the potential for reliable, sustainable, and economical maintenance of critical infrastructure. ImaB-Edge thus creates the foundation for scalable solutions in various application areas – from bridges and tunnels to other infrastructure structures.

microsensys’ contribution

At microsensys, we contribute our application-specific expertise to the ImaB-Edge project by developing robust sensors for condition monitoring that are adapted to environmental conditions and various installation sites (concrete, asphalt, etc.), and by developing and producing hardware to continuously record reliable measurement data. These can then be collected in a node and later analyzed and evaluated using artificial intelligence. Service teams and operators thus always have an overview of the condition of their structures in order to be able to act in a timely and well-informed manner.
The simple readout process and the long durability of our technology also benefit the project. Furthermore, we handle the pattern recognition of the sensor data to derive current and future structural behavior: precise values for predictive maintenance.

If you would like to learn more about our project, please visit our project website.