CASE STUDY

When work started in 2015 on the 3,114-meter Eppenberg Tunnel, it was clearly an important moment for the canton of Soleura in Switzerland. The tunnel was designed to link the towns of Aarau and Olten and decongest traffic on one of the most transited railway routes in the country, used by 550 trains every day. But an infrastructure project of this type required permanent and reliable geotechnical monitoring to detect any incident that might affect the works.

It is opted to solve the challenge with a IoT System to gather readings from the geotechnical instruments used across the Eppenberg Tunnel works. The remote monitoring system covers 55 load anchors and five extensometers, all controlled from a central gateway outside the tunnel. The system’s wireless operation and low power consumption offered a minimum-impact way of guaranteeing that the system does not interfere with construction work.