SEMINAR

ON

EARTHQUAKE ALERTS THROUGH CELLPHONES

PRASENTED BY

B.VENKATESWARAMMA
ECE ROLL NO:098U1A0404

harmful

can

be

predicted before striking

ABSTRACT
Every an them place year thousands catches dangerous a sleep. alerts of people die because earthquake in a

based on property that they travel at a rate slower than Primary (p)-

waves. Hence the alerts can be sent before the s -waves reach the system sensor surface. This uses earthquake network, system,

or during

defenseless Earthquake

through mobile services could be more efficient and easier a way to user. predicts approach Telestatistics

decision alert dissemination

system. It simply generates when earth them SMS server messages 40 taking precautions 60 seconds, enough stopping trains, the alert signals of cross passes via SMS send the rate

that there are over 51 million mobile users in India. Portability their increase ways communication. wave released of epicenter at the and inexpensiveness speed and of Energy the the than fast,

level and

vibrations to the users can at

threshold

services.

messages/second, up would which to the busses, to the be are take speed run

and the time lapse for

earthquake travels slower (3.5 to 8 km/s) travel which are very light. Primary (P) waves Secondary(s)-waves slower and

precautionary steps like

away

from

poorly buildings.

of causalities could be reduced necessary steps. by taking penultimate

constructed

The possibility of false alarms is also reduced as the information this is verified Using safeguard earthquakes thoroughly. complete against cannot be

assured but the number

1.0 INTRODUCTION:
Earthquakes strike without warning .The resulting be minimized and damage lives can can be

proposed

here. This

system

does

not try to find the epicenter or the earth signal fault line caused and the by the the earth

saved, if the people living in the earthquake - prone area are already prepared requires strong system energy at a rate to survive a ground is the strike. This before a the from the warning the the at warning

earthquake. It when

simply

monitors level of

vibrations

generates alert

vibrations crosses a threshold. After receiving alert, a middle-aged seconds from to fifth person go floor . If takes 30 to 40 the it stairs a takes down

motion

earthquake arrives. Such possible wave slower released

because

epicenter of the earthquake travels (at 3.5 to 8 km/s) than light. The warning signal from the using earthquake to the epicenter different can be transmitted places

minimum of 10 seconds to damage a poorly structured house, these 10 seconds too can be considered for going consider earthquake occurrence to safer these alert of place. If the we actual can points, giving before earthquake

satellite

communication network, pager service or a

network, fiber optics service, cell phone

minimize casualties.

2.0 EARTH QUAKES:

A sudden, transient motion or trembling of the earth's crust, resulting from the waves in the earth caused by faulting of the rocks or by volcanic activity.

combination of these. The satellitebased network is ideal if the alert system has to cover a large country like India. For earthquake-prone states like Gujarat, a seismic alert system using the global system for mobile communication spread (GSM) the network state is throughout

2.1

TYPES

OF

DEADLY

WAVES:
2.1.1 P-WAVES & S-WAVES:When an earthquake occurs, it releases energy in the form

of waves that radiate from that earthquake source in the ground in all different fastest directions. ways and waves are Different types of energy waves shake travel through the earth at different velocities. The called primary (P) waves. These are compressional in nature like sound wave, and waves compress at a in and speed expand of 8 material in their direction of travel. P move km/second. These waves destructive are not nature.

Fig 2.1.1

p-waves
the move

& s-waves
waves have similar to the up the and down of

Secondary (S) characteristics the earth to

waves on the surface of water. These perpendicular direction

their motion. S waves are slower than P waves, moving at half the velocity of P waves (4 km/second). Vertical ground motion generated by S waves is highly damaging to the structures.

2.12 LOVE AND RAYLEIGH WAVES:However most structural damage is caused by surface waves that are slower than S waves, called Love and Rayleigh, these waves shake the ground horizontally .Destruction also depends on the frequency of ground vibrations. P and S waves have higher frequency of vibration, which shakes the low-rise buildings. The Love and Rayleigh waves have less than 1Hz vibrations, which cause high rise buildings to vibrate.

SMS alert through cell phones have following advantages.

3.0 ADVANTAGES OF CELL PHONES SERVICES:

1.Telestatics predicts that Indias cell phone subscribers are increasing exponentially everyyear

OVER

OTHER

FIG 3.1

According to the survey, the number of cell phone subscribers in India are Fig 2.2 Since slower waves which have more damaging characteristics reach distant places from epicenter much later, alerts could decrease the causalities. Among the various possible alerts like alerts through radios, television, internet etc, 51 millions. 2. They are small and portable. Thus even if user is away from city or on his journey, he would get an alert signal. 3.It is the faster means of transmitting the messages.

4.Cell phones have full duplex. This means that you can use one frequency for talking and a second frequency, separate frequency for listening. Both people on a cell phone can talk at once.

4.0 COMMUNICATING THE DANGER:

This GSM-based alert system monitors the earth vibration using a strong motion accelerometer at the earthquake-prone area and broadcasts an alert message to towns and villages through the cellphone network existing throughout the state. Here mobile phones are used as transmitters and receivers. 4.1Short message service: The short message service (SMS) of the GSM network allows one to send a message consisting of a maximum of 160 alphanumeric characters to or from a mobile station. This service can be viewed as an advanced form of alphanumeric paging with a number of advantages. If the subscriber's mobile unit is powered off or has left the coverage area, the FIG 4.1 The communication system for earthquake alert comprises an earthquake sensor and interface unit, decision system network. and alert dissemination

message is stored and offered back to the subscriber when the mobile is powered on or has re-entered the coverage area of the network. This ensures that the message will be received.

center, only the discrete magnitude levels will be detected and any magnitude above the preset threshold level will be transferred to the mobile receiver handset via short message service (SMS). The handset, in turn, will transfer it to the base transceiver stations (BTS) if it is within 10 to 17 km of the

4.2Earthquake-sensor Network: Earthquake sensors (strong motion accelerometers) are deployed at known epicenters (20 to 30 in numbers only for Gujarat), fault line zones and earthquake-prone areas. Earthquakeprone areas like Bhuj may have sensors at more than two or three places, located 40 to 50 km away from each other. Each sensing location should have two accelerometers placed two to three meters away from each other. The purpose of installing two accelerometers at each place is to detect and eliminate the local vibration noise, which can give false signals (vibration) to the accelerometer. An interface unit, which has to be developed, will monitor both the accelerometers. It will act only when both the accelerometers give the same signals. Since this is only an alert network and does not find out the location of the epi-

BTS. Otherwise, it may require a repeater for transferring data to the cellphone network. The handset should have auto-dialling facility and be preloaded with a fixed dialling number and fixed message. Whenever the handset gets a signal (pulse) from the interface unit, it goes into the autodialling mode and transfers data to the network and waits for the next pulse with the same number and message.

the form of 'cell broadcast.' But it is not advisable to disturb the main server specially for this system. Another application server may be included in the network for the alert system, which will work as the interface between the network (SMS) server and the transmitter located at different earthquake-prone areas or epicenters. 4.4 Interface Unit: At the epicenter, the interface unit triggers the handset as soon as it receives FIG 4.2 4.3Decision system: When an SMS is sent from the mobile handset, it first goes to the SMS server of the mobile network, then to the destination receiver handset. If the same message has to be sent to different locations (receivers), the transmitter handset has to dial different numbers for different destinations. But in this proposed system, on a single transmission the message should go to different predefined locations. This is possible if the SMS server of the mobile network is programmed for such a facility. In fact, this type of facility already exists in the GSM network in P and S waves of the predefined magnitude. The handset is always ready with the fixed message and destination number. Here the destination is the application server, which has been included for the proposed system and should be connected to the SMS server of the mobile telephony (GSM) network. It also acts as an interface between the single source transmitter (epicenter) and multiple receivers installed at different towns and villages. All the source handsets (placed at different locations for sending the alert messages) should be registered at the application server. As soon as the application server receives an alert message (through the SMS server) from a

particular registered source handset or transmitter, it first checks whether it is for P wave or S wave. An epicenter will first send P wave, then S wave after a few seconds. Therefore the application server should know from the first message transmission that it is P wave and from the second message that it is S wave. Accordingly, it looks for the respective look-up table that contains destinationdialing numbers and passes the same to the SMS server. The SMS server sends alert messages at the rate of 40 messages per second (maximum capacity of the existing mobile phone network) to all the destinations through the GSM network. Therefore in this mode it takes a maximum of only one second for sending the alert signals to the As mentioned above, the application server should have look-up tables for alert messages of P and S waves. For example, if an earthquake sensor detects P wave of the preset magnitude and an alert message is sent to the application server through the network, the application server looks for the look-up table for the numbers it has to dial. As P wave is detected earlier predefined destinations.

than S wave, it will send alert-signals to the nearby towns and villages within the range of 50 to 100km.This will take 2 or 3 seconds. After a few seconds, the application server will receive another alert message from the same epicenter. It counts this as the message for S wavethis also confirms the earthquake.The application server again goes through the look-up table to send the alert signal to different locations within 50 to 100 km. Since earthquakes of a magnitude less than 5.5 on Richter scale hardly affect the buildings, this system is designed to start sending alert signals if the earthquake magnitude is more than 5.5 on Richter scale. The magnitude threshold for sending the alert signals can be decided by an experts' committee. If earthquake sensors at different epicenters are placed 40 to 50 km apart, an earthquake at a particular epicenter will hit the other sensors as well after a few seconds because earthquake waves move at around 3.5 and 8 km/second. Consequently, other interface units will also start sending (through the dial network) alert signals to different locations as per the look-up

table given in the application server. Therefore destination locations will get alert signals every few seconds, which confirms that a destructive earthquake wave is moving on the earth from one place to another. 4.5 Alert-dissemination network: As mentioned earlier, the alert-dissemination network is a simple cell phone network (GSM) in SMS mode, which already exists in most of the states in India. Alert messages are transferred to the destination handset through the mobile network system in SMS mode. The receivers are installed at different places as individual units or in groups. These should have an interface unit to read the message and take action to disseminate the alert message to the public. The alert receivers could be attached to the civil defense sirens and broadcast systems, and also installed at government offices that are responsible for disaster management.

to-end communication delay will be very less, provided all the transmitters (handsets) placed at different epicenters are given the top priority for communication in SMS mode. For this, a permanent instruction (through the application server) has to be given to the SMS server of the communication network so that whenever an alert message comes from the identified locations (registered to the application server), the server gives it the top priority and transmits it to the destination immediately. Time delay at the sensor location includes the sensor (accelerometer) response time, circuit delay and processing time at the interface unit to form the alert signal. At a few tens of milliseconds, this is negligible. Time to transfer the alert signal from the epicenter to the application server will be a maximum of three seconds because the SMS server will give priority to this message. Once the alert signal (message) is formed, the interface unit will transfer it to the transmitter. The transmitted message will be received by the application server, then forwarded to the SMS server. The SMS server will transfer the

5.0 TIME-TO-ALERT:
In this system, time-to-alert is the time between the actual occurrence of the earthquake at the sensing point and the audio or text message output at the public or government offices. End-

SMS message at the rate of 40 messages per second. The worst-case sum of the time taken by all these components is five to six seconds for a particular region only. The following examples give an idea of how much time in advance one can get the alarm signals before the strong ground motion from a large earthquake arrives. Suppose an earthquake sensor installed at Anjar first notices the earthquake's ground motions at time To. If we take the worst case of destructive S wave, the ground motion will hit the Bhachau village (30 km away from Anjar) after around To + 8.6 seconds considering that the speed of S wave is 3.5 km/second. If we consider the worstcase transmission time of six seconds, Bhachau will get the alarm 2.6 seconds before the destructive S wave reaches there. As Bhachau is within 50 km of Anjar, alert signals should be given on the arrival of P wave because it is faster than S wave and also depends on the distance between the epicenter and sensors installed at particular locations. So another few seconds can be added to 2.6 seconds. The alert transmission time

now comes out to be six to eight seconds. Similarly, Morvi town (60 km away from Anjar) will get the alarm before 12 to 14 seconds for S wave and around 22 seconds for P wave. Rajkot (110 km away) will get the alarm before 27 to 30 seconds for S wave, Viramgham (160 km away) before 40.6 seconds for S wave, Ahmedabad before 62.1 seconds for S wave and Vadodara before 72.2 seconds. All these timings are approximate because the speed of earthquake waves varies with the soil condition at different locations.

6.0

ADVANTAGES OF THE

SYSTEM
Audio alarms can be installed to alert people, but the action that individual can take with only a few seconds minimal. (nuclear of warning may be Facilities power with highairport

energy or high-precision machinery plants, operations, computers, oil pipelines, refineries and gas distributions) could be shut down.

Trains stations rooms

could and alerted,

be and

stopped.Fire operation emergency

8.0 CONCLUSIONS
This earthquake alert system senses earthquake earthquake waves zones, at potential these transmits

hospital

generators started. As a poorly structured building takes at least five seconds to collapse, three seconds spent in transferring the S-wave alert signals to the SMS server can still give enough time to seek safety Alarming the population living in the downstream region of a large dam would be helpful. The cost of an earthquake early warning system is low compared to other measures (improvements of rolling stock, rail/track system, embankments, etc.). tunnels, bridges

discrete magnitude values to a central place via GSM cell phone network, and uses computer-based decision making to deliver alert signals to the identified receivers placed at different towns and cities for both public and government consumption. The system is simple and could be configured with available resources in the country. Here, only concepts are described. Detailed simulation, feasibility study and experimentation are required to optimise the system and reduce the possibilities of false alarm.

9.0 REFERENCES:
www.howstuffworks.com units for www.weekipedia.com interface

7.0 LIMITATIONS
The accelerometers and handsets are not available in the market. So these have to be developed indigenously. . Since the time of alert is less it may lead to chaos and confusion. Casualties can be minimized but we cannot overcome loss of property.