Arabian Journal of Geosciences (2020) 13: 1144

https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-020-06130-y

GMGDA 2019

Design and implementation of geological hazard monitoring system

via the Internet of things
Xiangmin Gao 1 & Guixian Wu 1 & Jian Chen 1 & Qingyan Zeng 1

Received: 22 July 2020 / Accepted: 7 October 2020 / Published online: 25 October 2020
# Saudi Society for Geosciences 2020

Abstract
To realize geological hazard monitoring, a set of the Internet of things geological hazard monitoring system based on Mesh
network combined sensor is constructed in this study. In this study, the Internet of things geological hazard monitoring system is
divided into three parts according to its functions, which are acquisition system, wireless Mesh network system, and data
monitoring platform. The hardware and software of these three parts are constructed respectively. Under the control of master
control STM32, the acquisition system sends the data of temperature and humidity sensor and tilt angle sensor to the Mesh
network through Lora module. Mesh network is developed and configured with OpenWrt under the hardware platform of TL-
WR841Nv8. The data monitoring platform sets up a web server on the basis of Mesh network exit to realize a series of functions.
Through the construction of three parts of hardware and software, the monitoring platform is established. Verified in three scenes
of laboratory, campus, and lakeside, the function of the monitoring platform is realized. The Internet of things geological hazard
monitoring system constructed in this study has achieved preliminary results, meeting the basic needs of the geological hazard
monitoring system, which lays a foundation for the further optimization of the geological hazard monitoring system.

Keywords Internet of things . Geological hazard monitoring . Mesh network . Acquisition system . Data monitoring platform

Introduction billion. In 2019, a total of 948 geological hazards were suc-

Vast territory and diverse landforms have been widely recog-
nized as the geological and geomorphic characteristics of
China. This feature will surely lead to the occurrence of geo-
logical hazards and become a problem that cannot be ignored
in China (Berariu et al. 2015). Some studies have pointed out
that the causes of geological hazards are often complex and
changeable, with such characteristics as gradual change, im-
mediate change, multiple occurrences, and mass occurrence
(Qin et al. 2018). At present, the condition of geological haz-
ards in China is still very severe. In 2019 alone, a total of 6181
geological hazards occurred in China. As a result, 211 people
were killed, 13 people were missing, and 75 people were
injured, causing in a direct economic loss of RMB 2.77
This article is part of the Topical Collection on Geological Modeling and
Geospatial Data Analysis
* Jian Chen
chenjianjxue@126.com
1
Jiangxi University of Engineering, Xinyu 338029, Jiangxi, China
cessfully predicted in China, involving 24,478 possible casu-
alties and avoiding direct economic losses of RMB 830 mil-
lion (the data comes from the 2019 official survey of the China
Geological Survey) (Shen et al. 2019; Huo et al. 2020). The
geological hazard monitoring system plays a positive role to
some extent. However, it has become an urgent need that
further effective monitoring in areas with high incidence of
geological hazards and early warning that gives surrounding
people enough time for evacuation should be carried out to
reduce the loss of people and property caused by hazards.
As the Internet of things technology becomes more and
more widely used in all walks of life, the problems of high
cost, difficult installation, and low intelligence of the Internet
of things sensors in geological hazard monitoring are solved
(Tao 2020; Memon et al. 2019). Domestic geological hazard
monitoring started relatively late, and it mostly only relied on
foreign experience and technology the early stage. In the early
stage, only the technologies such as merit transmission and
short message and GPRS (General Packet Radio Service)
were used (Hawalah 2019). In 2002, Chen et al. made an
innovative improvement on the traditional detection technol-
ogy and adopted laser technology in the geological
1144 Page 2 of 7
displacement variation ranging. At present, most monitors
used in China are large in size, expensive, and difficult to
maintain. Mesh network is different from the traditional wired
network, it can conduct instant communicating and can be
applied flexibly in different scene; it also has functions such
as self-organization, self-healing, and self-configuration,
which result in its natural advantages in application in areas
with poor environment (Gonçalves et al. 2019; Lai et al. 2019;
Wu et al. 2020).
In conclusion, in order to solve the problem of incomplete
coverage and difficult monitoring of geological hazard moni-
toring system at the present stage, it proposes the construction
of the Internet of things geological hazard monitoring system
based on Mesh network in this study, and the geological haz-
ard monitoring system is divided into three parts: data acqui-
sition system, Mesh wireless network system, and real-time
monitoring platform. The purpose of this study is to provide a
good guidance for the construction of geological hazard mon-
itoring system and its subsequent implementation and
application.
Methodology
The structure and requirements of system
construction
Geological hazards tend to occur in areas with poor geograph-
ical conditions; such areas are not only hazard-prone but also
the possibility of secondary hazards will also increase because
rescue managers are unable to reach in time. Therefore, it
indicates that the most important thing for this system is to
have simultaneity and reliability of data transmission and a
certain automatic monitoring capability. And since the moni-
toring stations are often located in the harsh surroundings, it is
required that the monitoring system is capable of self-
organization and self-repair at the same time. According to
the above requirements, the overall function of the geological
hazard monitoring system is designed as follows.
I: the data needs to be collected in real time. The geological
hazard monitoring sensor is installed in the place where mon-
itoring is needed, which can collect the data of geological
hazard prone areas and upload them to the Mesh node in real
time for subsequent processing. The data collected at the
nodes include real-time temperature, real-time precipitation,
real-time wind speed, ground slope angle, and other data in
the geological hazard prone area.
II: the data is transmitted with Mesh network. The geolog-
ical hazard monitoring system of each node will upload the
data to the Mesh node. Mesh nodes are configured by them-
selves, and multiple Mesh nodes interact to form a Mesh net-
work, which has formed a geological information data
Arab J Geosci (2020) 13: 1144
network with certain risk resistance and the ability to automat-
ically repair.
III: the realization of remote alarm function is as follows.
Mesh network is connected to monitoring platform so as to
realize real-time monitoring of each data acquisition node.
The detected data include environmental parameters such as
temperature and soil moisture in each monitoring area and are
compared with the set threshold value. Once the collected data
exceeds the threshold value, the alarm will be triggered, so
that the monitoring personnel can detect geological hazards as
soon as possible and provide the possibility for early
prevention.
According to the above requirements, the Internet of things
geological monitoring system is divided into three parts: local
data acquisition node, Mesh network, and data summary mon-
itoring platform. The diagram is shown below, as shown in
Fig. 1.
System running process
The running process according to the above design is shown
in Fig. 2. Data acquisition sensors should be set up in the
geological hazard prone areas that need to be monitored, and
the temperature, humidity, and ground tilt angle detector are
confirmed working normally, and then the Mesh wireless net-
work node is installed at the determined location. The Mesh
network will process and package the data and upload it to the
monitoring platform; the monitoring personnel can view and
download the data in real time through the monitoring
platform.
Sensor
no e
Sensor
Sensor
no e
onitoring platform
Sensor
Sensor
Mesh node Monitoring platform
no e
Sensor
Monitoring platform
Sensor
node
Sensor
Fig. 1 System diagram
Arab J Geosci (2020) 13: 1144 Page 3 of 7 1144

Fig. 2 System running process Sensor data acquisition

Mesh networks Data monitoring platform
system

Sensors Sensors
Data Data Danger
collect collect warning
storage query
data data

Data acquisition node software design
Hardware is the carrier of software, only accurate data acqui-
sition leads to meaningful subsequent data processing. The
sensor data involved in this system include temperature, hu-
midity, and tilt angle, and the software is designed as follows
based on these three.
setting the system clock source, the X-axis off PLL (phase-
locked loop) is taken as the clock. The corresponding accel-
eration and angular velocity values are read, and the data is
transmitted; the specific process is shown in Fig. 4.
Multi-nodes monitoring algorithm

Temperature, temperature and humidity sensor monitoring The probability of geological hazard at the monitoring site is
software set as F(x), and the formula for calculating F(x) is obtained
through the gi(t) of multiple monitoring sites.
STM23 and the temperature and humidity sensor are connect- F ðxÞ ¼ a1 g1 ðt Þ þ a2 g2 ðt Þ þ ⋯ þ an gn ðt Þ ð1Þ
ed by a single-threaded mode. According to different timing
requirements, the controller can obtain the correct temperature a 1 g 1 (t) represents the warning value issued by each
and humidity at the right time point; the correctness test is
carried out through AM2302 program. When STM32 gets STM32 sends
a start signal
the data, it firstly verifies the sensor response condition, then Data
reads five bytes and enters data validation. The verification validation

method adopted is shown in Table 1, the calibration is carried

Sensor
out successively until the calibration is complete with 7 digits, response
and the calibration result shall be output if it is correct. The Read the 0th
specific process is shown in Fig. 3. Yes byte
Read 5
bytes of
Tilt angle sensor software design data from
the device No Signal line
MPU6050 sensor is used to collect real-time acceleration and low

angular velocity, and STM32 is used to read data. The module Yes
needs to be initialized before data acquisition, which is to reset No Signal line
No
MPU6050, set the range of angular velocity and acceleration, No higher than No
and set the sampling rate low-pass filter and configure the 55us
Whether the
clock source. The specific configuration operation is to restore data Yes
No
verification
the sensor to the default value and set up the gyroscope. After is correct Recognized Recognized
as 1 as 0
Yes

Table 1 AM2302 program inspection method update data

Whether the
High Low High Low The Yes seventh
humidity humidity temperature temperature generated Yes
sampling sampling sampling sampling checksum
value value value value Capture end Whether or
not 5 bytes
are read
0010 1010 0110 0100 0100 1001 0100 0101 0001 1100
Verification 0010 1010 + 0110 0100 + 0100 1001 + 0100 0101 = 0001
method 1100 Fig. 3 The reading and monitoring process of temperature and humidity
sensor
1144 Page 4 of 7 Arab J Geosci (2020) 13: 1144

and Mesh network used in this system are discussed in this

MPU6050 start-up section.

TL-WR841Nv8 system software.

Gyroscope set as
±2000dps The hardware basis of this system is router equipment, and the
Set X axis gyro PLL as schematic diagram of the equipment is shown in Fig. 5.
clock
OpenWrt is the most common and popular system in router
Acceleration range set as development, it not only meets the need to run Linux more
±2g efficiently in a router, and it can also optimize network con-
figuration and manage multiple platforms such as ARM,
MIPS, and x86, which increases its widespread use (Luo
Read data in MPU6050
et al. 2020).
Disable FIFO function

Wireless Mesh node software

Gyroscope sampling Data collected by the node is transmitted to the Mesh module
frequency set as 50 through STM32, and real-time communication with Mesh is
realized through the special node STM32 so as to further
realize more distant data transmission. Since the wireless
Fig. 4 Operating configuration of tilt angle sensor
working module and Mesh node are at different communica-
tion frequencies, it is necessary to realize the function of
independent monitoring node; the following process is obtain- converting other collected data together on STM32 and send-
ed by fusion algorithm. ing it to the Mesh node, as shown in Fig. 6.
Assuming gi(t) is obtained from m independent measure- Under the support of Batman-adv router protocol, Mesh
ment nodes, then its expression is as follows. network is constructed, and TCP is used for communication
gi ðt Þ ¼ b1 h1 ðt Þ þ b2 h2 ðt Þ þ ⋯ þ bm hm ðt Þ ð2Þ (Qiang et al. 2020; Chen et al. 2020). An automatic server
program is opened on the Mesh node so as to achieve that
Since there is bound to be some error in the data acquisition procedures from other nodes are sent to this server via the
and the monitoring environment is mostly in the areas with Mesh network. The common Mesh node only needs to send
bad natural environment, multiple measurements are required the data received by the UART port to the server, and the
using multiple sensors, and the results should be evaluated and server performs a series of data processing and integration.
integrated. It is assumed that q sensors are installed in each
region to measure the same location; that is, q monitoring Data monitoring platform-related software
results can be obtained for one monitoring node.
The function is defined as follows. The data monitoring platform requires to display the data in-
q
2 q
 2 formation collected in real time at each node. The data in-
1 4 cludes real-time temperature clothing, humidity, angle
f ðxÞ ¼ ∑ xi −x ¼ ∑ xi − ∑ xi
i¼1 i¼1 q i¼1 ! change, status of AM302 sensor and MPU6050 sensor, and
q
 2
4 alarm status of this node, and the download, historical query,
∂ ∑ xi − 1q ∑ xi ð3Þ
∂f ðxÞ i¼1 i¼1 and other functions are available. The login and router man-
pð x Þ ¼ ¼  q  agement interfaces of the monitoring platform are merged
∂ð q Þ 1
∂ ∑ xi together. The login interface is the interface of Mesh network
q i¼1
node router, and the initial default user name is root, no pass-
when p(x) = 0, and x = x is the accurate monitoring value of the word. The real-time data display is presented in the form of a
measured object. scatterplot, and each node corresponds to the data at that time.
The data and alarm status of the node can be viewed by plac-
ing the mouse over it. Historical data can be queried through
Wireless Mesh network-related software the drop-down menu. The line chart is used to represent the
overall trend of change, and location history can be viewed in
The development of Mesh network software of this geological detail by a mouse click. Node data is downloaded by clicking
hazard monitoring system is completed based on OpenWrt the download button on the Google browser; the monitoring
(Prasad 2020; Liang 2020). The router protocols in OpenWrt personnel can store the data otherwise.
Arab J Geosci (2020) 13: 1144
Fig. 5 Schematic diagram of router equipment
Results and discussion
Data acquisition node test
Tested in the laboratory environment, the temperature and
humidity sensor AM2302, tilt angle sensor MPU6050, and
wireless Lora module can be used normally and can accom-
plish data acquisition with the coordination of STM32 master
controller. After self-inspection, the system shows “Start” and
starts to work, sending the data to the PC terminal, and the
data received by the PC terminal is shown in Fig. 7. The data
in one node are collected for several times, and the collected
data is sent to the PC terminal after being calculated by the
fusion algorithm. The sent data are the current environmental
humidity; temperature; x-, y-, and z-axes information of the tilt
Fig. 6 STM32 link schematic
Wireless
Modules
Sensor
Page 5 of 7 1144
angle sensor; the sensor status; and the tilt angle sensor status
in turn. The experiment is conducted at the ambient humidity
of 40%RH; and the temperature is 32 °C; the x-, y, and z-axes
have small fluctuations respectively; and the two sensors work
normally.
Test results of wireless Mesh network
Due to specific conditions, only four Mesh network nodes are
set up for network testing in this experiment, and the four
nodes are set as M1, M2, M3, and M4, respectively. For the
experiment is only completed in the university campus, the
actual condition of long distance in the field cannot be fully
simulated. Therefore, the signal transmission range of M1 is
reduced to prevent the signal from being directly transmitted
UART
Mesh Monitoring
STM32 UART UART
Network platform
UART/I2C
1144 Page 6 of 7 Arab J Geosci (2020) 13: 1144

where the overall environment is relatively complex. The

Fig. 7 PC terminal receiving results of data acquisition
to M4. The delay condition is then tested, and the test results
are shown in Fig. 8. The result of maximum delay of the four
nodes is 164.0 ms. Although the overall delay is large, it is
able to meet the needs of the geological hazard monitoring
system.
Whole system test
lake is not only with a large terrain difference but also in
a hot and humid environment in summer, and sheltered
by trees, which is conducive to a more realistic simula-
tion of the environment in the disaster-prone areas. In
order to restore the situation of the disaster-prone area
as truly as possible, each node is placed on the ground
tightly. M1 is taken as the exit node of the entire net-
work in the experiment and linked to and logged in the
disaster monitoring platform of the computer. M1, M2,
M3, and M4 are placed in different environments; M1
and M3 are placed in low-lying areas, M2 is placed near
water, and M4 is placed in bushes. Relevant software
and hardware tests have been carried out in the labora-
tory and campus above. This experiment directly ob-
served the display function of the data platform. The data
displayed by the data platform is shown in Fig. 9, which
is a linear display. The real-time data of the correspond-
ing nodes can be viewed by moving the mouse to the
corresponding position on the node.
When the mouse clicks a point on the line, details of the
node appear, and it shows whether the two sensors are work-
ing properly. The data will be saved in the history; the history
collection information can be queried by clicking into the
history interface. The historical query interface is shown in
Fig. 10, and different nodes at different times can be queried.
It is found in the experiment that the shielding of trees and
bushes do not have much influence on the data transmission
between Mesh nodes as expected in the field test. It is the
uneven terrain that has a great impact on the transmission.
Once the height difference between the two transmission
nodes exceeds 0.5 m, the transmission effect will decline
sharply or even interrupt.

Based on the test in the two sections above, this test is

carried out in the field, and the XX lakeside is selected,
Average interaction delay(ms)

180
164
160
140
120
100
80
60
40 33.8
20
2.2
0
M1-M2 M1-M3 M1-M4
Fig. 8 Average interaction time delays Fig. 9 Monitor platform display results
Arab J Geosci (2020) 13: 1144
Node Node 1 Select time period
Fig. 10 Detection platform history query function
Conclusion
Mesh network is innovatively combined with Internet of
things in this study. After field investigation and objective
analysis, the geological hazard monitoring system based on
data acquisition, wireless Mesh network, and data monitoring
platform is set up. Firstly, the overall structure and hardware
of the whole geological hazard monitoring system are de-
signed. AM2302 temperature and humidity module and
MPU6050 sensor are data acquisition system. WR841Nv8 is
used for wireless Mesh nodes. The monitoring platform is
built with Web server. Then the software of the whole system
is designed in detail. The established geological disaster mon-
itoring system is tested in three scenes of laboratory, campus,
and lakeside; the test results show that the monitoring system
shows good performance at the laboratory and campus, but
shows poor performance at the lakeside due to the large terrain
difference. In this study, the Internet of things geological haz-
ard monitoring system based on Mesh network is constructed
without doing the field work. The areas with frequent occur-
rence of field geological hazards are usually characterized by
complex environment and many influencing factors; the sys-
tem needs to be further applied and optimized in the field
application. The application of the system in the area with
large terrain difference still needs to be further optimized.
Funding This work was supported by the Science and Technology
Research Project of Jiangxi Provincial Department of Education (No.
gjj191661); Science and Technology Research Project of Jiangxi
Provincial Department of Education (No. gjj191193); and Science and
Technology Research Project of Jiangxi Provincial Department of
Education (No. gjj181137).
References
Berariu R, Fikar C, Gronalt M et al (2015) Understanding the impact of
cascade effects of natural hazards on hazard relief operations. Int J
Disaster Risk Reduct 12(7):350–356
Chen LK, Chang CH, Liu CH, Ho JY (2020) Application of a three-
dimensional deterministic model to assess potential landslides, a
Page 7 of 7 1144
20xx-xx-xx xx:xx 20xx-xx-xx xx:xx Enter
case study: Antong Hot Spring Area in Hualien, Taiwan. Water
12(2):480
Gonçalves RM, Saleem A, Queiroz HA et al (2019) A fuzzy model
integrating shoreline changes, NDVI and settlement influences for
coastal zone human impact classification. Appl Geography 113:
102093
Hawalah A (2019) Semantic ontology-based approach to enhance Arabic
text classification. Big Data and Cognitive Computing 3(4):53
Huo A, Yang L, Peng J et al (2020) Spatial characteristics of the rainfall
induced landslides in the Chinese Loess Plateau. Human and
Ecological Risk Assessment: An International Journal. J Spat Sci
5:1–16
Lai F, Shao Q, Lin Y, Yi X, Sun X, Shao H, Xian W, Peng P (2019) A
method for the hazard assessment of regional geological hazards: a
case study of the Panxi area, China. J Spatial Sci:1–20. https://doi.
org/10.1080/14498596.2019.1606741
Liang WL (2020) Dynamics of pore water pressure at the soil–bedrock
interface recorded during a rainfall-induced shallow landslide in a
steep natural forested headwater catchment. J Hydrol:
125003. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2020.125003
Luo Y, Jiang W, Li B, Jiao Q, Li Y, Li Q, Zhang J (2020) Analyzing the
formation mechanism of the Xuyong landslide, Sichuan province,
China, and emergency monitoring based on multiple remote sensing
platform techniques. Geomatics, Natural Hazards and Risk 11(1):
654–677
Memon I, Fazal H, Shaikh RA et al (2019) Big data, Cloud and 5G
networks create smart and intelligent world: a survey. Univ Sindh
J Inf Commun Technol 3(4):185–192
Prasad V (2020) Natural hazards management and fisher community in
Andaman & Nicobar Islands. Purakala with ISSN 0971-2143 is an
UGC CARE. Journal 31(8):1373–1386
Qiang XU, Dalei PENG, Chaoyang HE et al (2020) Theory and method
of monitoring and early warning for sudden loess landslide - a case
study at Heifangtai terrace. J Eng Geol 28(1):111–121
Qin L, Feng S, Zhu H (2018) Research on the technological architectural
design of geological hazard monitoring and rescue-after-hazard sys-
tem based on cloud computing and Internet of things. Int J Syst
Assure Eng Manag 9(3):684–695
Shen H, Song M, Xiao S et al (2019) 001| Nonlinear dynamics analysis of
reciprocating compressor systems with clearance in hospitals. Basic
Clin Pharmacol Toxicol 125(9):3–237
Tao Z (2020) Advanced Wavelet Sampling Algorithm for IoT based
environmental monitoring and management. Comput Commun
150:547–555
Wu J, Yan X, Yang T, Huang X (2020) Research on solute transport
characteristics in the process of artificial recharge to control land
subsidence in deep confined aquifer. Proc Int Assoc Hydrol Sci
382:709–709