ThingWorx powers the cloud-based Smart Structures SmartPile™ system for remote monitoring of bridges, buildings, and other infrastructure
ThingWorx™, the provider of the first software application platform for the connected world, today announced a strategic partnership with Smart Structures Inc., a global leader in wireless solutions for smart infrastructure monitoring. The partnership will deliver solutions to improve the quality of bridge pilings, foundations, and other concrete structures, while reducing construction costs and improving safety.
This partnership addresses a growing need in the US – cost effectively building out a smarter physical infrastructure. Despite billions of dollars in federal, state, and local funds directed toward the maintenance of existing bridges, 69,223 bridges—11.5 percent of total highway bridges in the U.S.—are classified as “structurally deficient,” requiring significant maintenance, rehabilitation, or replacement, according to a 2010 report from the Federal Highway Administration. In the years since the report was issued, America’s infrastructure challenges appear to be accelerating. However, new technologies, including wireless, Internet-connected sensors could improve the state of infrastructure, introduce more efficient means of monitoring assets, extend the service life of these assets, and enhance public safety.
“The number of wireless sensors and other Internet-connected devices deployed across the country to improve infrastructure management is growing rapidly, but what’s been missing is an effective platform for managing and analyzing condition reporting data,” says Russ Fadel, Co-founder and CEO at ThingWorx.
“Our connected application platform serves as a complement to Smart Structures’ field-proven technology and solutions, and it will enhance the value that construction companies, bridge designers, municipalities, and governments derive from remote infrastructure monitoring.”
Smart Structures’ SmartPile® Embedded Data Collector (EDC) technology uses software to process data from wireless embedded sensors embedded within concrete piles used in foundations. The system is used during construction to ensure the quality and integrity of the structure. When properly planned in, these sensors can also provide post-construction long term load and event monitoring. The ThingWorx platform will provide the critical software and AlwaysOn communications infrastructure for the SmartPile system, allowing Smart Structures to securely connect its remote workstations to a centralized, cloud-based information database and Internet portal where sensor data is stored.
“Smart Structures’ technology and solutions have already demonstrated the benefits of smart infrastructure in the field, and we look forward to building more value into our solutions by adding the power of ThingWorx,” says Tom Chiarella, CEO at Smart Structures, Inc.
“We chose ThingWorx because we were able to extend our current on-line system dramatically faster than with previous
generation tools. These new technologies are changing the way we interact with our physical world, and by allowing objects and machines to send us data about their performance, our customers will be better prepared to react and respond to deficiencies in strength and integrity while minimizing costs and risk.”
The partnership with ThingWorx extends Smart Structures’ core capabilities beyond sensor data collection, providing them with a modern, Web 2.0-based platform, including innovative collaboration and intelligence tools that will allow Smart Structures to rapidly build Internet dashboards that allow authorized users to download, analyze, review, and generate reports on sensor data that is captured during bridge construction and through ongoing monitoring.
As the system evolves, the Smart Structures solution has the ability to detect long-term changes that can indicate corrosion, erosion, and other leading indicators of structural deficiencies. This will enable state and federal governments to subscribe to the Smart Structures online data and application services to obtain data from the embedded sensors for health monitoring, maintenance and repair management, homeland defense, emergency response, and other critical needs. The system can also provide real-time alerts on pending structural deficiencies to enable a new level of situational awareness for local, state, and federal public safety and security agencies.
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