An extended concept beyond automatic lighting and parking search systems. A concept where all buildings of the city are monitored, for safety and security improvements.
For us at Next Industries, it’s all about connectivity. This means connecting our buildings and structures in a meaningful way to professionals responsible for their upkeep and safety. Next Industries designs and manufactures highly ac-curate data acquisition loggers, sensors and gateways. These rugged, standalone devices communicate wire-lessly with the cloud, allowing 24/7 monitoring, notifications and alarms. Professionals can access customized views of the data, creating valuable knowledge around the specific data that is most relevant to them. This technology allows a city’s buildings to communicate with those responsible for managing them. Moreover, this technology highlight any issues before buildings can become apparent due to some sort of failure.
Building monitoring starts during construction
Structural monitoring during a building’s construction phase can play an important role. How? By ensuring the soundness of the structure and protecting the health and safety of construction workers and the general public. Major construction projects can impact surrounding buildings due to vibration and potential undermining. Adjacent buildings can therefore be monitored via sensors to ensure that no damage is occurring. Taking these actions helps developers to be seen as professional and responsible persons. In addition, these action builds confidence in the integrity of the development, especially in high density city environments. Then it goes through building lifetime.
Modern materials and construction methods mean that today’s buildings are safe and of the highest quality, but even these structures are subject to environmental impacts that have the potential to affect their integrity. Heavy or continued precipitation, snow and high winds can contribute to change the characteristics of the structure over extended periods. These changes can reduce the building’s ability to withstand extreme events or even lead to a serious failure. Even the toughest materials can experience corrosion or a degrading of properties, which could also reduce the integrity of the building. Such failings often only become apparent when the damage has already been done, resulting in costly repairs. Deploying a range of inclinometers, accelerometers and temperature sensors allows for continual monitoring of buildings, identifying changes and allowing for intervention before any significant damage has occurred.
Do not forget about environment
Occasionally, it is not changes to a structure that can cause failure but changes to the surrounding environment. We can see this in environments where avalanches are a constant threat, but there are other situations where changes in the landscape can impact our structures. Periods of heavy rain can cause saturation of surrounding ground and then soil liquefaction and landslides. Other extreme events include earthquakes, with potentially catastrophic effects on buildings. Deploying sensors such as inclinometers can monitor the condition of the surrounding environment, while structural sensors will identify any impacts this is having on a city’s buildings.Next Industries offers innovative solutions to connect smart cities, deploying cutting-edge technologies to increase security for both residents and city assets. Visit our solutions and applications pages to find out more about our work.
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