COVER SHEET Title: Flexure-based Mechatronic Mobile Sensors for Structure Damage Detection

Wireless sensing has been widely explored in recent years for structural monitoring and dynamic testing, due to its advantage in reducing instrumentation time and cost. Limitations of current wireless sensors have been identified in terms of power supply, communication bandwidth, communication range, computing power, etc. To address the above challenges faced by traditional wireless sensor networks with static configurations, this research proposes a new approach for structural health monitoring using mobile sensor networks. Compared with static wireless sensors, mobile sensor networks offer flexible system architectures with adaptive spatial resolutions. This paper describes the design concept of a flexure-based mechatronic (flexonic) mobile sensing node. The flexonic mobile sensing node is capable of maneuvering on structures made of ferromagnetic materials, as well as attaching/detaching the accelerometer on/from the structural surface. Concept feasibility of the flexonic mobile sensing system has been validated in a laboratory setting. Numerical simulations are conducted to explore the effectiveness of transmissibility function analysis in detecting potential damage in the laboratory steel portal frame