Structural foundation monitoring sensor system
First Claim
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1. An apparatus for detecting a change in orientation of a building'"'"'s structural foundation, the apparatus comprising:
- one or more energy storage units;
three or more inclination sensors each;
rigidly attached to respective portions of a building'"'"'s structural foundation, andconfigured to measure inclination of the respective portion of the building'"'"'s structural foundation, wherein measure inclination includes measure an orientation of the respective inclination sensor relative to a gravitational acceleration vector;
one or more location reporting units;
one or more wireless communication modules; and
one or more processors configured to activate one of the one or more wireless communication modules at one or more intervals to report inclination of the building'"'"'s structural foundation measured by one of the three or more inclination sensors.
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Abstract
Various embodiments of methods and apparatus for detecting a change in an orientation of a portion of a structure. In some embodiments, the apparatus includes a processor, an energy storage unit, a location reporting unit, a wireless communication module and one or more inclination sensors. In some embodiments, each of the one or more inclination sensors is configured to measure inclination by measuring an orientation of the each of the one or more inclination sensors relative to a gravitational acceleration vector.
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Citations
21 Claims
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1. An apparatus for detecting a change in orientation of a building'"'"'s structural foundation, the apparatus comprising:
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one or more energy storage units; three or more inclination sensors each; rigidly attached to respective portions of a building'"'"'s structural foundation, and configured to measure inclination of the respective portion of the building'"'"'s structural foundation, wherein measure inclination includes measure an orientation of the respective inclination sensor relative to a gravitational acceleration vector; one or more location reporting units; one or more wireless communication modules; and one or more processors configured to activate one of the one or more wireless communication modules at one or more intervals to report inclination of the building'"'"'s structural foundation measured by one of the three or more inclination sensors. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 17, 18, 19, 20)
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6. A method for detecting a change in an orientation of a building'"'"'s structural foundation, the method comprising:
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measuring, by three or more inclination sensors, respective inclinations of respective portions of a building'"'"'s structural foundation, wherein measuring a respective inclination of a respective portion of a building'"'"'s structural foundation comprises measuring an orientation of a respective inclination sensor relative to a gravitational acceleration vector; periodically activating, at a pre-determined interval, respective wireless connections for each inclination sensor; and reporting, over respective periodically-activated wireless connections, respective orientations of respective ones of the three or more inclination sensors. - View Dependent Claims (7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 21)
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12. A system, comprising:
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three or more sensor units each rigidly attached to respective portions of a building'"'"'s structural foundation, each of the three or more sensor units configured to; periodically measure inclination of a respective portion of the structural foundation, wherein measure inclination includes measure an orientation of a respective inclination sensor relative to a gravitational acceleration vector, periodically activate, at a pre-determined interval, a wireless connection, and periodically report, to a data aggregator, the respective orientation of the respective inclination sensor relative to the gravitational acceleration vector; and the data aggregator configured to; receive the respective orientations from each of the three or more inclination sensor units, and report data received from the one or more sensor units to a remote data repository. - View Dependent Claims (13, 14, 15, 16)
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Specification