Penn Grad Students Keep A Smart Eye On Philly Bridges
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Philadelphia has a dubious distinction: it's home to the 15 most-traveled structurally-deficient bridges in Pennsylvania.
Some Penn grad students may just have the answer for keeping us safe, and for directing maintenance dollars where they're needed most.
As a real-time monitor of a bridge's integrity, Viewpoint uses sensors to measure temperature and acceleration.
"To see what kind of vibrations are going through the bridge and if there's any sudden changes in loading," said Kevin Martin, team design leader.
And critically, he says, "measuring the strength of the concrete. This is something that isn't going to change drastically."
As it senses an increasing rate of deterioration, it can flag an inspection crew to make that bridge a priority.
"Stuff you can't really see visually, but through our sensor system would be able to monitor it internally and give people a little better idea of the condition of the bridges they're using everyday," said Martin.
Martin says he's heard interest from city officials for Viewpoint. It won the recent Comcast-Pennovation Challenge, a competition for tech based on Comcast's Internet of Things-smart cities platform called machineQ.