Jase Sitton: Indirect Bridge Monitoring Using Crowdsourced Smartphone Data from Passing Vehicles

United States bridge infrastructure is aging, with more than 231,000 bridges currently in need of repair, rehabilitation, or replacement. In light of the urgent needs surrounding aging bridge infrastructure, and in the absence of sufficient funding to address all required bridge repairs, it is crucial to identify which bridges have the most immediate need for the allocation of available funds for bridge repairs. Typically, structural health monitoring comprises the installation of permanent sensors on a bridge superstructure and the collection of data for analysis to determine bridge condition. These systems, however, are often expensive and logistically difficult to install on a large number of bridges. Smartphones contain a variety of sensors, including accelerometers and gyroscopes, that may be used to record bridge vibration response data from within vehicles as they traverse bridges. This data may then be used isolate the bridge's vibration response and make bridge condition assessments at regular intervals, and bridges requiring immediate attention can be flagged.