Ubiquitous Earthquake Observation System Using Wireless Sensor Devices

Abstract

Japan suffers from a high number of earthquakes, so the technology for an earthquake observation is highly demanded. One of information on an earthquake is seismic intensity information which is measured with seismic intensity meters and is announced by the media such as TV. The seismic intensity is a value observed at a location where a seismic intensity meter is placed. This means that the seismic intensity shows wide area information such as administrative districts, e.g., city, town or village. However sites where equal seismic intensity was observed would not necessarily suffer the same damage, because damage depends on the type of construction and on the nature of the seismic motion. Therefore, it is difficult to estimate the individual damage in personal area. In order to measure all the locations, it is necessary to place huge number of seismic intensity meters. In the paper, we develop the system which can observe an earthquake by using wireless sensor network technology. We use wireless nodes equipped with acceleration sensors. The system can provide useful information to predict the individual damage.