Smart vehicles, stupid infrastructure—that’s a phrase often invoked by Ted Zoli, national bridge chief engineer for HNTB, when he talks about the advent of connected vehicles that communicate with each other. He asks, will smart vehicles communicate with infrastructure? And will future infrastructure communicate with engineers?
The answer is yes, he predicts. Further, he designed a test bed, the Memorial Bridge, which runs over the Piscataqua River between New Hampshire and Maine. The 1,200-ft-long, two-year-old bridge is becoming a “living bridge”—a piece of self-diagnosing, self-reporting smart infrastructure studded with about 250 sensors. The array will monitor traffic, vibration, stress, temperature, wind, humidity and precipitation as well as water quality, turbidity and the effects of any ship impacts. It will be powered by a tidal energy turbine on a bridge pier.