SBIR Phase I: Implementing a low-cost seismic network using mobile phones and MEMS accelerometers

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是建立一个密集和廉价的地震网络，监测地震危害，并向受影响地区的居民提供即将发生的地震的实时通知。这个地震预警系统还将帮助核电站和其他公用事业、交通基础设施和关键制造设施的运营商在地震发生前及时降低其运营水平。一个经济实惠且可扩展的地震网络可以在大城市中拥有多达数万个传感器，从而能够创建分辨率低至100米的高精度地震地图（相比之下，当前地图的分辨率约为10公里），为房主、城市开发商和保险公司提供有价值的信息，以计算保险风险和保费。这个小企业创新研究第一阶段项目解决了美国和许多其他地震易发国家缺乏有效预警系统的问题。传统地震台网的建设和运营成本很高。该项目建议以传统地震台网的一小部分成本创建一个可扩展的地震台网。该公司计划将廉价的MEMS（微机电传感器）加速度计连接到联网的二手/回收智能手机上，以检测振动并将预处理数据传输到服务器。将为客户端传感器设备（即智能手机）和服务器计算平台开发快速震级估计算法，以可靠地将地震与其他振动源区分开来，并估计受影响地区地震的震级和到达时间。目标是在地震发生后两秒钟内发出警报，从而为周围受灾地区采取适当行动提供充足的时间。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is to create a dense and inexpensive seismic network that will monitor earthquake hazard and provide real-time notifications of impending tremors to residents in affected areas. This earthquake early warning system will also help operators of nuclear power plants and other utilities, transportation infrastructure and critical manufacturing facilities downgrade their operations in a timely manner ahead of a seismic event. An affordable and scalable seismic network could have as many as tens of thousands of sensors in metropolitan cities, enabling the creation of highly accurate shaking maps with resolution down to 100m (compared with resolutions of around 10km for current maps), providing valuable information for homeowners, city developers, and insurance companies to compute insurance risk and premiums.This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I Project addresses the lack of effective early warning systems in the US and in many other earthquake prone countries. Traditional seismic networks are costly to construct and operate. This project proposes to create a scalable seismic network for a fraction of the cost of a traditional seismic network. The company plans to use inexpensive MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical-Sensor) accelerometers attached to internet-connected used/recycled smartphones to detect vibrations and transmit pre-processed data to a server. Fast magnitude estimation algorithms will be developed for both the client sensor devices (i.e. the smartphones) and server computing platform to reliably distinguish earthquakes from other vibration sources and to estimate the magnitude and time of arrival of tremors in affected areas. The objective is to generate a warning within two seconds of the origin of an earthquake, thereby providing sufficient time for appropriate actions to be taken in surrounding affected areas.