A Structural Engineering Perspective on the Use of Remote Sensing Measurements for Civil SHM

The last decades offered to the civil engineering scientific and technical community the opportunity to improve their diagnostic and assessment capability due to a significant sensing technology development. Many non-destructive testing techniques have been developed in a way that no-contact measurement can be taken, even in harsh environments. At the same time, dynamic testing and vibration-based monitoring are becoming very attractive for the health assessment of structures, also thanks to the increasing availability of powerful and compact devices able to perform complex calculations with low or moderate power demand. On the other hand, remote sensing techniques, which are currently well established for earth observation and therefore adopted in the assessment of large-scale geological phenomena, are increasing their resolution and capabilities of detailed description of changes in the configuration of the surface based on data collected by the satellite constellations. Because of the enhanced observation capacity, their use for detailed monitoring of structures and infrastructures, not necessarily distributed in nature, has been largely debated by the technical and scientific community in recent years. Starting from these technological advances in the field of satellite measurements, the present paper reports some insights made by the research group on the use of remote sensing data for health monitoring of civil structures. Attention is focused on the approach to data analysis. The applicative perspectives of remote sensing in the field of civil Structural Health Monitoring are finally discussed with reference to some explanatory case studies.