Integration of Railway Bridge Structural Health Monitoring into the Internet of Things with a Digital Twin: A Case Study

Structural health monitoring (SHM) is critical for ensuring the safety of infrastructure such as bridges. This article presents a digital twin solution for the SHM of railway bridges using low-cost wireless accelerometers and machine learning (ML). The system architecture combines on-premises edge computing and cloud analytics to enable efficient real-time monitoring and complete storage of relevant time-history datasets. After train crossings, the accelerometers stream raw vibration data, which are processed in the frequency domain and analyzed using machine learning to detect anomalies that indicate potential structural issues. The digital twin approach is demonstrated on an in-service railway bridge for which vibration data were collected over two years under normal operating conditions. By learning allowable ranges for vibration patterns, the digital twin model identifies abnormal spectral peaks that indicate potential changes in structural integrity. The long-term pilot proves that this affordable SHM system can provide automated and real-time warnings of bridge damage and also supports the use of in-house-designed sensors with lower cost and edge computing capabilities such as those used in the demonstration. The successful on-premises-cloud hybrid implementation provides a cost effective and scalable model for expanding monitoring to thousands of railway bridges, democratizing SHM to improve safety by avoiding catastrophic failures.

Human-Robot Collaborations in Smart Manufacturing Environments: Review and Outlook

The successful implementation of Human-Robot Collaboration (HRC) has become a prominent feature of smart manufacturing environments. Key industrial requirements, such as flexibility, efficiency, collaboration, consistency, and sustainability, present pressing HRC needs in the manufacturing sector. This paper provides a systemic review and an in-depth discussion of the key technologies currently being employed in smart manufacturing with HRC systems. The work presented here focuses on the design of HRC systems, with particular attention given to the various levels of Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) observed in the industry. The paper also examines the key technologies being implemented in smart manufacturing, including Artificial Intelligence (AI), Collaborative Robots (Cobots), Augmented Reality (AR), and Digital Twin (DT), and discusses their applications in HRC systems. The benefits and practical instances of deploying these technologies are showcased, emphasizing the substantial prospects for growth and improvement in sectors such as automotive and food. However, the paper also addresses the limitations of HRC utilization and implementation and provides some insights into how the design of these systems should be approached in future work and research. Overall, this paper provides new insights into the current state of HRC in smart manufacturing and serves as a useful resource for those interested in the ongoing development of HRC systems in the industry.

Towards the Digital Twin (DT) of Narrow-Band Internet of Things (NBIoT) Wireless Communication in Industrial Indoor Environment

A study of the behavior of NB-IoT wireless communication in an industrial indoor environment was conducted in this paper. With Wireless Insite software, a scenario in the industrial sector was simulated and modeled. Our research examined how this scenario or environment affected the communication parameters of NB-IoT's physical layer. In this context, throughput levels among terminals as well as between terminals and transceiver towers, the power received at signal destination points, signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) in the environment, and distances between terminals and transceivers are considered. These simulated results are also compared with the calculated or theoretical values of these parameters. The results show the effect of the industrial setting on wireless communication. The differences between the theoretical and simulated values are also established.