The free MyShake app developed at the Berkeley University lab will turn a smartphone into a mini seismograph
We welcome our readers to the pages of the blog iCover . Today we will talk about the free application MyShake, developed in the seismological laboratory of the University of Berkeley in California. The application runs on a smartphone in the background and allows the user to record in advance the potentially dangerous seismic activity.
Destructive earthquakes in the conditions of large cities have been and remain a global problem. Preventing an earthquake, even a minute before the first tangible shocks, will be able to provide the residents of megalopolises with that precious temporary handicap that will give the opportunity to leave the confined space of an apartment or city transport and move to a safer place.
Modern earthquake early warning systems using a database of integrated seismic and geodetic networks today exist in several developed countries and are supported at the level of federal authorities. So in July 2015, the US Geological Survey allocated $ 4 million to the Berkeley Seismological Laboratory to develop the ShakeAlert early warning system project for cities and transport networks in California, Oregon and Washington. At the same time, the density of stationary equipment proposed by the system, despite the existing 400 (!) Seismological stations existing within the state of California and the prospect of implementing the ShakeAlert project, is still inferior to the same indicator, say, in Japan, where information from central computers is supplied by seismic sensors at a distance of 24 km from each other throughout the country.
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A simple and inexpensive way to solve the problem of eliminating “white information spots” was proposed by a group of scientists from the University of Berkeley in California. As an alternative to a laboratory seismograph, it was proposed to use a smartphone available to the vast majority of us with built-in accelerometers. The team of specialists has resulted in a unique MyShake application, which, according to the developers, is capable of collecting, analyzing, sending to a central hub and receiving confirmation of overcoming a dangerous seismic activity threshold, in conjunction with smartphone sensors. A detailed description of the development can be found on the pages of the online publication Science Advances .
The researchers demonstrated that the sensors of the smartphone are able to register tremors, while separating useful information from the “background noise” of various origins. The MyShake application allows you to turn your smartphone into something like a miniature seismological station connected to a central hub, where global seismic activity map data is collected and analyzed. Thus, the application not only reads and analyzes information, but also transmits useful data, including the GPS coordinates of the user, to the seismological laboratory of the University of Berkeley, where they are subjected to further centralized analysis on the basis of which it is concluded that there is a real danger level.
In turn, the data collected by thousands of smartphones within the global information network will provide a more accurate and comprehensive picture of the global processes occurring in the earth's crust in real time. At the same time, seismic signals collected by smartphones can be used to compile real-time seismic activity maps.
“Of course, the built-in accelerometers and MyShake applications cannot replace traditional seismic networks, such as those managed by the US Geological Survey, the University of California at Berkeley, or the University of Washington. At the same time, we believe that MyShake will increase the accuracy of earthquake prediction and predict it earlier, where there is traditional seismic control, and where there is none, become the only opportunity for early emergency warning, ”comments Richard Allen on the development possibilities (Richard Allen), MyShake Project Manager, Director, Berkeley Seismological Laboratory. So, for example, a mobile seismological network of smartphones with a pre-installed application can be indispensable in developing countries with seismic conditions, such as Peru, Nepal, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Mongolia, Malaysia, Indonesia or the Philippines.
Accelerometer of the smartphone has sufficient sensitivity to lay motionless on a horizontal surface to record tremors with a force of 5 points, representing a real danger of destruction, up to 10 km from the epicenter.
“We currently have a network of 400 seismic stations centered around the San Francisco Bay and Los Angeles suburbs - one of the densest in the world and 16 million custom smartphones within the state,” said Allen. “Even if we receive information only from a small part of the 16 million mobile devices participating in our program, we will be able to increase the accuracy of the data several times, very quickly filling the information gap that we could not fill earlier, while increasing the time early warning.
Currently, California’s integrated seismic network monitors subsoil movement throughout the state using underground seismometers. “Today, ShakeAlert issues a warning at a signal from at least four of our traditional seismic stations,” says Allen. "... But if we have mobile phone data, it’s likely that only one will be enough to make a decision on confirmation."
Work on the application code that allows the sensor data to be interpreted using the analysis algorithm and transfer the processing results to the servers of the University of Berkeley lasted for 3 years with the participation of a total of 8 developers. "Creating an application that is able to collect the necessary data in real time, we remembered that it will work in the background and should not have a noticeable effect on the work of the average smartphone - to block the handset, use the lion's share of the RAM resource, or consume battery power by connecting to a GPS receiver, ”shared the experience of Louis Schreier, vice president of the T-Labs innovation center, whose experts participated in the development.
The algorithm was tested with a total of 75 Android smartphones of students, colleagues and friends of the authors using vibration stands of the university laboratories, which allow simulating earthquakes with a high degree of accuracy. The result looks very encouraging: shocks that simulate an earthquake profile on a vibration stand were separated from the characteristic background “vibration noise” with an accuracy of 93% and identified by accelerometers of smartphones of previous years of release . (a fragment of the experiment is displayed in the figure below).
The phone’s accelerometers track real-time seismic activity by constantly checking the data with stored earthquake profiles. When coincidence, the obtained operational data, including time, the amplitude of shocks and the user's GPS coordinates in the form of a packet, are sent to the server of the central seismological station in Berkeley, after which the GPS channel is deactivated. All data collected in the cloud at the central seismological station at Berkeley is also analyzed in real time. If at least 4 smartphones with MyShake preinstalled transmitted similar information from the region and their number was between 60% and above of the total number of users of the application within a radius of 10 km, the software algorithm confirms the earthquake by sending a notification to the user's smartphone. In addition to sending a confirmation, if the smartphone is connected to the network after receiving confirmation, the corresponding record will be analyzed in the laboratory at a 5-minute interval, with a breakdown - 1 minute until the confirmation and 4 minutes after it.
“Today we issue a warning when critical information is received from at least four state seismic stations. - Allen commented on the situation with the early warning of an earthquake at the level of California - "If we can get data from users' smartphones it is possible to get an objective picture and one will be enough for us."
To accurately assess the location of the source of seismic activity, the estimated force and time of shocks using the application data, you will need information from at least 300 smartphones in a square 110 x 110 km. Thus, the denser the network in a particular region, the earlier its users will receive an alert about the upcoming cataclysm. "With sufficient network density, the whole process from the moment of detection to the moment of notification will take less than a second," Young-Woo Kwon, co-author of the invention from Utah State University, notes in his publication .
It is worth noting that the opportunity to use the accelerometers of the smartphone for recognition of seismological activity was already considered earlier, in April 2015 at the level of development of a group of specialists from the USA and Canada. But the result obtained can hardly be called successful, since the proposed algorithm assumed the constant presence in the background of the GPS positioning option, which significantly impressed the device’s battery. The second drawback was the imperfection of the algorithm, which involves the preliminary processing of data collected by sensors at the platform level of iOS or Android, and not transferring them for analysis directly into an independent smartphone application. Both moments ultimately became the cornerstone that made the use of the proposed algorithm ineffective.
MyShake application is devoid of the described shortcomings and, according to the results of preliminary testing, confirmed the expectations of specialists. Taking into account the fact that the application is distributed free of charge and practically does not create problems for the user, the developers sincerely hope that thousands of smartphone owners will install it, which will, if they successfully confirm the idea already at the level of a global experiment, improve and update the application and the technology itself further. In the long term, according to the project’s curator Richard Allen, the application will be installed on most smartphones, which will provide a unique in its scope global seismological network with the highest possible early warning capabilities of all active MyShake users.
“MyShake is primarily a seismic network for which we have developed an early warning algorithm. Such a network can provide millions of seismic signals that will be useful when conducting a wide range of research projects. They can, for example, be used to create specific detailed maps of microseismic activity, which, in turn, will be very useful in the design of buildings.
Read more: Science Advances , Eurekalert.org , phys.org .
Since Friday, February 12, 2016, from the date of publication on the Science Advances portal, the MyShake application is available for free download on Google Play . The next stage planned by the team from Berkeley is the development of a variation of the free application for the iPhone.
Dear readers, we are always happy to meet and wait for you on the pages of our blog. We are ready to continue to share with you the latest news, review materials and other publications, and we will try to do everything possible so that the time spent with us will be useful for you. And, of course, do not forget to subscribe to our headings .
Our other articles and events
Destructive earthquakes in the conditions of large cities have been and remain a global problem. Preventing an earthquake, even a minute before the first tangible shocks, will be able to provide the residents of megalopolises with that precious temporary handicap that will give the opportunity to leave the confined space of an apartment or city transport and move to a safer place.
Modern earthquake early warning systems using a database of integrated seismic and geodetic networks today exist in several developed countries and are supported at the level of federal authorities. So in July 2015, the US Geological Survey allocated $ 4 million to the Berkeley Seismological Laboratory to develop the ShakeAlert early warning system project for cities and transport networks in California, Oregon and Washington. At the same time, the density of stationary equipment proposed by the system, despite the existing 400 (!) Seismological stations existing within the state of California and the prospect of implementing the ShakeAlert project, is still inferior to the same indicator, say, in Japan, where information from central computers is supplied by seismic sensors at a distance of 24 km from each other throughout the country.
')
A simple and inexpensive way to solve the problem of eliminating “white information spots” was proposed by a group of scientists from the University of Berkeley in California. As an alternative to a laboratory seismograph, it was proposed to use a smartphone available to the vast majority of us with built-in accelerometers. The team of specialists has resulted in a unique MyShake application, which, according to the developers, is capable of collecting, analyzing, sending to a central hub and receiving confirmation of overcoming a dangerous seismic activity threshold, in conjunction with smartphone sensors. A detailed description of the development can be found on the pages of the online publication Science Advances .
The researchers demonstrated that the sensors of the smartphone are able to register tremors, while separating useful information from the “background noise” of various origins. The MyShake application allows you to turn your smartphone into something like a miniature seismological station connected to a central hub, where global seismic activity map data is collected and analyzed. Thus, the application not only reads and analyzes information, but also transmits useful data, including the GPS coordinates of the user, to the seismological laboratory of the University of Berkeley, where they are subjected to further centralized analysis on the basis of which it is concluded that there is a real danger level.
In turn, the data collected by thousands of smartphones within the global information network will provide a more accurate and comprehensive picture of the global processes occurring in the earth's crust in real time. At the same time, seismic signals collected by smartphones can be used to compile real-time seismic activity maps.
“Of course, the built-in accelerometers and MyShake applications cannot replace traditional seismic networks, such as those managed by the US Geological Survey, the University of California at Berkeley, or the University of Washington. At the same time, we believe that MyShake will increase the accuracy of earthquake prediction and predict it earlier, where there is traditional seismic control, and where there is none, become the only opportunity for early emergency warning, ”comments Richard Allen on the development possibilities (Richard Allen), MyShake Project Manager, Director, Berkeley Seismological Laboratory. So, for example, a mobile seismological network of smartphones with a pre-installed application can be indispensable in developing countries with seismic conditions, such as Peru, Nepal, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Mongolia, Malaysia, Indonesia or the Philippines.
Accelerometer of the smartphone has sufficient sensitivity to lay motionless on a horizontal surface to record tremors with a force of 5 points, representing a real danger of destruction, up to 10 km from the epicenter.
“We currently have a network of 400 seismic stations centered around the San Francisco Bay and Los Angeles suburbs - one of the densest in the world and 16 million custom smartphones within the state,” said Allen. “Even if we receive information only from a small part of the 16 million mobile devices participating in our program, we will be able to increase the accuracy of the data several times, very quickly filling the information gap that we could not fill earlier, while increasing the time early warning.
How it works
Currently, California’s integrated seismic network monitors subsoil movement throughout the state using underground seismometers. “Today, ShakeAlert issues a warning at a signal from at least four of our traditional seismic stations,” says Allen. "... But if we have mobile phone data, it’s likely that only one will be enough to make a decision on confirmation."
Work on the application code that allows the sensor data to be interpreted using the analysis algorithm and transfer the processing results to the servers of the University of Berkeley lasted for 3 years with the participation of a total of 8 developers. "Creating an application that is able to collect the necessary data in real time, we remembered that it will work in the background and should not have a noticeable effect on the work of the average smartphone - to block the handset, use the lion's share of the RAM resource, or consume battery power by connecting to a GPS receiver, ”shared the experience of Louis Schreier, vice president of the T-Labs innovation center, whose experts participated in the development.
The algorithm was tested with a total of 75 Android smartphones of students, colleagues and friends of the authors using vibration stands of the university laboratories, which allow simulating earthquakes with a high degree of accuracy. The result looks very encouraging: shocks that simulate an earthquake profile on a vibration stand were separated from the characteristic background “vibration noise” with an accuracy of 93% and identified by accelerometers of smartphones of previous years of release . (a fragment of the experiment is displayed in the figure below).
The phone’s accelerometers track real-time seismic activity by constantly checking the data with stored earthquake profiles. When coincidence, the obtained operational data, including time, the amplitude of shocks and the user's GPS coordinates in the form of a packet, are sent to the server of the central seismological station in Berkeley, after which the GPS channel is deactivated. All data collected in the cloud at the central seismological station at Berkeley is also analyzed in real time. If at least 4 smartphones with MyShake preinstalled transmitted similar information from the region and their number was between 60% and above of the total number of users of the application within a radius of 10 km, the software algorithm confirms the earthquake by sending a notification to the user's smartphone. In addition to sending a confirmation, if the smartphone is connected to the network after receiving confirmation, the corresponding record will be analyzed in the laboratory at a 5-minute interval, with a breakdown - 1 minute until the confirmation and 4 minutes after it.
“Today we issue a warning when critical information is received from at least four state seismic stations. - Allen commented on the situation with the early warning of an earthquake at the level of California - "If we can get data from users' smartphones it is possible to get an objective picture and one will be enough for us."
To accurately assess the location of the source of seismic activity, the estimated force and time of shocks using the application data, you will need information from at least 300 smartphones in a square 110 x 110 km. Thus, the denser the network in a particular region, the earlier its users will receive an alert about the upcoming cataclysm. "With sufficient network density, the whole process from the moment of detection to the moment of notification will take less than a second," Young-Woo Kwon, co-author of the invention from Utah State University, notes in his publication .
It is worth noting that the opportunity to use the accelerometers of the smartphone for recognition of seismological activity was already considered earlier, in April 2015 at the level of development of a group of specialists from the USA and Canada. But the result obtained can hardly be called successful, since the proposed algorithm assumed the constant presence in the background of the GPS positioning option, which significantly impressed the device’s battery. The second drawback was the imperfection of the algorithm, which involves the preliminary processing of data collected by sensors at the platform level of iOS or Android, and not transferring them for analysis directly into an independent smartphone application. Both moments ultimately became the cornerstone that made the use of the proposed algorithm ineffective.
MyShake application is devoid of the described shortcomings and, according to the results of preliminary testing, confirmed the expectations of specialists. Taking into account the fact that the application is distributed free of charge and practically does not create problems for the user, the developers sincerely hope that thousands of smartphone owners will install it, which will, if they successfully confirm the idea already at the level of a global experiment, improve and update the application and the technology itself further. In the long term, according to the project’s curator Richard Allen, the application will be installed on most smartphones, which will provide a unique in its scope global seismological network with the highest possible early warning capabilities of all active MyShake users.
“MyShake is primarily a seismic network for which we have developed an early warning algorithm. Such a network can provide millions of seismic signals that will be useful when conducting a wide range of research projects. They can, for example, be used to create specific detailed maps of microseismic activity, which, in turn, will be very useful in the design of buildings.
Read more: Science Advances , Eurekalert.org , phys.org .
Since Friday, February 12, 2016, from the date of publication on the Science Advances portal, the MyShake application is available for free download on Google Play . The next stage planned by the team from Berkeley is the development of a variation of the free application for the iPhone.
Dear readers, we are always happy to meet and wait for you on the pages of our blog. We are ready to continue to share with you the latest news, review materials and other publications, and we will try to do everything possible so that the time spent with us will be useful for you. And, of course, do not forget to subscribe to our headings .
Our other articles and events
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/367959/
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