Major new feature for IntelliDAM and IntelliBRIDGE

GlobVision is pleased to announce the capacity to use space-based Interferometic Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) data as a standard feature in both the IntelliBRIDGE and IntelliDAM comprehensive Structural Health Monitoring software systems.

This enhancement allows the owners and operators of critically important infrastructure components, such as bridges, dams, tunnels, rail lines and elevated highways, to use space-based InSAR data as the primary data source, or in combination with in-situ data, for the Diagnosis, Prognosis and Health Management (DPHM) of these structures. This is particularly useful for settlement and deformation monitoring, allowing the tracking and analysis of their progression over time to the accuracy of millimeters.

The single largest benefit of InSAR data can be summarized, briefly, as follows.

Insofar as most structures were not monitored five, ten or twenty years ago and since the application of modern monitoring instrumentation and technics cannot provide a historical reference, engineers today cannot, for any given structure, obtain a historical reference. Only InSAR data, which has existed for over two decades, can provide this historical reference – particularly for structural deformation data. This data not only provides a baseline for measuring deformation and settlement but also can provide the velocity of deformational change.

Furthermore, a major proportion of structures today are not instrumented or regularly (electronically) monitored. This new functionality will enable the regular, periodic remote monitoring of such structures, thereby assuring an enhanced view of the current structural health, as well as a historical view of structural health. This will lead to enhanced safety for the public and the environment and reduced structural maintenance costs through the early detection and timely intervention of maintenance and repair activities, thus enhancing risk-mitigation approaches.

This development was achieved in cooperation with SWECO, a major Swedish engineering consulting firm and with Globesar, an independent Norwegian geomatics firm. It has received business and technical advice, and financial support from the National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC-IRAP).  The InSAR capability will be rolled-out as a free upgrade with the next version release, for existing IntelliDAM and IntelliBRIDGE clients that have Support and Maintenance contracts in place.

GlobVision’s IntelliBRIDGE and IntelliDAM systems are end-to-end software applications that address all of the steps involved in the process of evaluating and monitoring structural performance and health state; from data access, management, visualization and monitoring to data analysis and modeling. These systems assist users, from inspectors to operators in control rooms, to structural engineers and long-term planners, in their learning about the evolving relationship between various parameters within a structure. This in turn enables them to better understand the bigger picture and to safely manage structures as engineering systems.