Impact Sentinel

A WIRELESS MAINTENANCE MONITORING SYSTEM FOR ROCKFALL PROTECTION NETS

For the protection of rail and road against rockfall the GEOBRUGG systems present an advanced and reliable modern technology. The preventive role of the system is especially important in regions, where inspections of rock slopes and access are difficult and permanent physical or optical investigation of the status of a slope is not the economical option and the risk of sudden rockfall towards the traffic is known.

In order to ensure an easy permanent control of the status of the active safety elements, i.e. the ring brakes, and to help to maintain the installed nets in a most economic manner and after the design impacts – the impact sentinel system is developed. It replaces the need for the regular expert personnel inspections and is especially useful in designated crucial areas of rockfall or special protection areas – as they may be defined for a railroad track or other structures.

Impact Sentinel is adapted to the heavy working conditions far from normal wire based lines of communication and electric current supply and has been assembled with elements from the wireless and minimum-energy technologies. It employs magneto-dynamic or piezo-ceramic effects for the registration of the mechanical event of the design impact and utilises locally permitted radio waves to transmit the electronic message on the impact occurred to a central logger unit on site. The logger is programmed to send the alert message to those responsible or to generate a maintenance alert for a technician team.

Functional tested bySwiss Federal Research Institute WSL (an ETH Institute).