Remote Health Monitoring for Asset Management

access to 120 V power on-site at the buildings housing various farm-related equipment. Hinkson
Creek passes through the site, and there is access to the creek for the machinery necessary to
install the test pile.
Following the selection of the test site, an application to the U.S. Corp of Engineers was
prepared to ensure that the installation of the pile was not in conflict with relevant rules and
regulations governing work conducted within waterways. This included preparing and
submitting the form ENG FORM 4345 to the army Corp of Engineers, submitted in July, 2008.
The Army Corp responded on August 11, 2008 that the installation of the pile would not require
a permit.
Figure 5.9. Satellite photograph of the location of the test site where the prototype pile will be installed.
Software
To read the output of the sensors, the commercial software Labview was used to develop a
program that could read and log the data from each individual sensor. Key elements of the
software developed included the ability to link the sensor numbers, which are 64 bit unique
numbers stored in the ROM of each individual sensor, to the spatial position of each sensor along
the test pile. The software also allows for the user to determine the time interval between data
collection. This value has been set at 15 minute intervals, such that the sensor data is logged four
times each hour. The software also provides a display screen that shows the current temperatures
reported by each sensor, as well as other operational data, such as the number of scans collected,
time to the next scan, and operational status of the program. The software stores the data from
each scan to a database file for further processing.
A separate program operates a cell-phone based link to a server in the engineering building at
MU. This program uses a Sprint cell phone modem to transmit data to the server at the set time
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