6th European Workshop on Structural Health Monitoring. Dresden. Germany. 2012. Report. This paper presents an overview of research performed at the AGH University of Science and Technology in the field of the electromechanical impedance method for damage detection in mechanical structures. A theoretical background on the described method is made in the first part of the paper. Next, results of numerical analyses of the electromechanical impedance for simple mechanical structures are shown. Afterwards an outcome of laboratory measurements performed with developed structural health monitoring system based on the electromechanical impedance phenomenon is presented. Finally, results of tests of the monitoring system in environmental conditions are discussed.