Real-Time Seismic Data Acquisition via a Paired Ripple Transmission Protocol

This work uses a low-cost, reliable, and microchip-based wireless transmission solution to real-time collect earthquake data across local and wide areas. A transmission chain consisting of sensor units (nodes), each transmitting earthquake data unidirectionally to the end, is proposed. Each node consists of a seismic sensor, analog digital converter, radio frequency module, and a microchip for central control. The terminal node is responsible for transmitting data to a display server, which collects and analyzes all earthquake data from different transmission chains. Moreover, users also can distribute nodes, plug-in computers, in a wide area to monitor earthquake activities and transmit data to a web server. Then interested people can view the circumstance of an earthquake via web maps. For efficient wireless transmissions and to maximize bandwidth usage, a modified ripple protocol is applied to the wireless transmission between nodes in a daisy chain. Field experiments verify the practicality of the proposed system.