“Earthquake sensor using the Sigfox network.
Context
The main objective of this project is to develop a device able to detect and characterize earthquakes. Our goal is to send the collected data to a Human Machine Interface on a web application.This exercise is part of the Embedded Systems course at the graduate engineering school, Polytech Sorbonne. The main actors in this project are therefore Mr. Yann Douze, head of the speciality and sponsor of the project, as well as Mr. Julien Thiesson and Mr. Ludovic Bodet, researchers at UMR METIS. These last two provided us with support and expertise throughout the project.
Motivations
Earthquakes are among the most devastating natural disasters, causing mortality peaks up to 300, 000 people a year. It is therefore very important to be able to detect earthquakes as quickly as possible when they occur, but also to be able to study them by collecting as much information as we can.Around 100 stations in France are dedicated to earthquake detection, but their measurements must be analyzed before confirmation, which is only done on working days. We can therefore say that earthquake detection is not done in real time in France.Our project, named EarthPod, is capable of reacting very quickly when a tremor occurs. He then characterizes the disturbance and analyzes its level of dangerousness by placing it in a category (Calm - Weak - Medium - Strong).In addition, our system measures the ground acceleration during the shaking, and returns the average acceleration. We could therefore collaborate with scientific laboratories specializing in the study of earthquakes, or geological activities in general, to allow them to benefit from the data collected.”