Implementation of a Multiagent-Based Paradigm for Decentralized Real-Time Structural Health Monitoring

Engineering structures such as wind turbines require continuous monitoring to ensure structural safety, to reduce the overall maintenance and repair costs and, ultimately, to achieve extended lifetimes and a greater economic viability. For that purpose, an automated SHM system for wind turbines has been developed and installed on a 500 kW wind turbine in Germany. During its operation, temporary malfunctions of the installed sensing units have been observed. These malfunctions, such as temporary sensor breakdowns which are well known from real-time SHM systems, might cause the loss of valuable monitoring data if not detected timely. A multi-agent system, which is capable of self-detecting system malfunctions and notifying the human individuals automatically, has been developed and integrated into the existing SHM system. The SHM system and its subsystem, the multi-agent system, have been in continuous operation since 2009. Since then, various malfunctions have automatically been detected and appropriate actions have been taken in a timely manner. As a result, the malfunctioning of the sensors did not lead to significant data loss, thus enhancing the quality of the SHM system.