This full-text paper was peer-reviewed and accepted to be presented at the IEEE WiSPNET 2016 conference.
Earthquake Early Warning System by IOT using
Wireless Sensor Networks
Alphonsa A.,
Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering,
Sona College of Technology, Salem.
alphonsalexis@gmail.com
Abstract— The Wireless sensor network (WSN) is spatially
distributed sensors in an autonomous manner to monitor
physical environmental conditions. The Internet of things (IOT)
is the network of computed physical objects which enables these
things to connect, collect and exchange data. In this paper, we
propose an earthquake early warning system by means of an IOT
in WSN. The sensors are placed in the surface of the earth. When
an earthquake occurs, both compression P wave and transverse S
wave radiates outward the epicenter of the earth. The P wave,
which travels fastest, trips the sensors, placed in the landscape. It
causes early alert signals to be transfer ahead, giving humans and
automated electronic system a warning to take precautionary
actions. So that before the damage begins with the arrival of the
slower but stronger S waves, the public are warned earlier. The
signal from each sensor which senses the P wave and which has
Zigbee transmitter transfers the alert signal to the gateway. The
gateway which has the Zigbee receiver and acts as an IOT
transfers the warning to smart phones. Thus early alert message
is received by the people in terms of location, time and other
parameters. Eventually, many of the human lives can be saved.
The software used here is LABVIEW where the three angle axis
of the sensor can be sensed and detected when the sensors are
interfaced with this software.
Index Terms— Earthquake, Wireless Sensor Network, IOT,
ZIGBEE, Warning signal.
I. INTRODUCTION
Earthquake is commonly said to be a natural disaster which
is also known as tremor or temblor. The sudden shake in the
surface of the earth, which shutters down the buildings and
kills thousands of human lives. Thereby by predicting the
surfaces shake earlier by means of sensors that may warn
public earlier. By the theory that the S waves are the first
attack wave from the surface and then the P waves attack the
surface latter that brings the strongest shake then the S wave.
Hence the public is warned earlier in few minutes or seconds
before. The wireless sensor network is the network where the
sensors are spatially distributed to monitor the physical and
environment conditions normally.WSN is used in many fields
due to its low cost, easy maintenance and robustness. The
wireless sensor network is connection of several sensors that
are connected to each other to perform the same functionality
to monitor the environment scenario. The term “IOT” is
commonly abbreviated as “INTERNET OF THINGS”. The
IOT is a said to be of computing concept that describes a
978-1-4673-9338-6/16/$31.00 2016
c IEEE
Ravi G.,
Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering,
Sona College of Technology, Salem.
raviraj.govind@gmail.com
future where every day and everywhere physical objects will
be connected to the internet and can be able to identify
themselves to other devices. IOT is the technique or network
used in this paper to send the accurate alert message to the
public with more accuracy. The IOT is the network it connects
the internet connected objects to form a network and hence the
alert massage is send to the public is more accurate way by
IOT.
II. RELATED WORKS
The core type of data driven IOT system used for
environment disaster risk mainly for tsunami. It helps prevent
loss of life and reduces economic and material impact of
disaster monitoring and warning by means of relevant
parameters used for forecasts to generate accurate and timely
warning. In the coastal regions the system is deployed, this
sensor data is then transmitted upstream to either an onsite or
remote, data processing centre, or to both when federated.
These data centers run the downstream routine operational
event detection. The techniques include are GIS (geographical
information system) to capture, store, analyze and support for
information alerts. It was deployed for tsunami detection and
IOT for accurate and timely warning and dissemination and
communication of risk information and warning to those at
risk [1].
An overview of the development of technology based on
the IOT, WSN and gaining significant importance in
communication. Next the IOT end to end architecture is
designed and evolved in this paper. The flow begins from the
wireless sensor devices where the sensors are placed and
formed a network with the main gateway in that network and
the communication protocol is initiated to facilitate. Then the
second flow is the data connectivity where the Ethernet is
commonly deployed for the communication purpose where the
big data analytics are undergoing and finally the flow ends up
in the management protocol, hereby the smart phones and the
other electronic communication devices are hit by the
communicated information. Hereby the architecture and the
protocols are being explained in this paper [2].
An IOT middleware solution that can work on resource
constrained mobile devices that allow the sensors easily to
collect and process data. In future IOT will rule the world that
will connect billons of internet connected things. Collecting
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 This full-text paper was peer-reviewed and accepted to be presented at the IEEE WiSPNET 2016 conference.
data from each individual objects is a significant task as it
mainly allows software systems to understand the environment
in a better way. Many different hardware devices might
involve in the process of collecting and updating sensor data to
the cloud where complicated processing also occur. On
process, we cannot accept all these things to be connected to
the cloud computers due to technical and economical reasons.
Hence, we should be able to use resource constrained devices
to collect data from these IOT. They conclude by saying the
process is capable of collecting data from multiple different
sensors and process them together. This platform can be used
in future to the public [3].
Proposed work on the landslides based upon the wireless
sensor networks.WSN is the most promising emerging
technologies. It provides the real time monitoring of
geographical regions that are prone to the disasters. This paper
is focused on the landslide detection for that the system of 50
sensors and 20 wireless sensor nodes was deployed in the
idukki, a district in the Kerala state, India. The wireless sensor
system have been past few years yet the condition of the
sensors are in good condition beyond monitoring the various
parameters such as moisture, pressure, movement and other
geological soil properties. Hence this paper shows algorithms
for the power constraints and the sensor type and properties
along with the wireless sensor network architecture and the
software modules. This paper has been implemented and
succeeded [4].
A new approach for earthquake early warning systems they
have used wireless, self organizing mesh sensor networks
model. They have followed a model-driven system
development paradigm. The paper has coupled in specific
geographic regions with the wave signal analyzing algorithms,
alarming system, convenient visualizations and earthquake
data bases. This paper is solely based on the Self-Organizing
Seismic Early Warning Information Networks (SOSEWIN)
[5- 11].
III. METHODOLOGY
The main purpose of this paper is to detect the earthquake
and to alert the public earlier. It can be done by sending
warning message by means of IOT, the more accurate and
smart way for transferring message to the public. Thereby the
smart phones are hinted with the alert message by IOT and
thus the human are aware. Fig. 1 shows the various blocks in
transmitter.
The following are the components for designing,
x Vibration sensors (Accelerometer)
x PIC(Peripheral Interface Controllers)
x ZIGBEE technique
x LCD display
x RS232 cable
The public who are free from smart phones can also be
warned by GSM module technique, where the alert message to
send to the nearby base station and from there the authorized
numbers can be alerted. The earthquake early warning systems
monitors to alert the human and devices when the shaking
waves that are generated by the earthquake are expected to
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arrive the respected location .Even a few seconds or minutes
of early warning may allow the people to take actions to
protect their lives and move to safer positions.
ACCELERO
METER 1
ZIGBEE
ACCELERO
PIC
METER 2
168F77
LCD DISPLAY
ACCELERO
METER 3
Fig. 1 Block diagram of Transmitter
A. Transmitter
The vibration sensors are designed to measure the
acceleration of the physical object. In this paper this sensor
helps in detecting the earth ground shakes. The environmental
requirements are also taken into the account in terms of
temperature range, humidity, atmosphere conditions too. The
sensors senses earlier in the sense that the earthquake produces
the waves normally classified as P or S waves. The P wave is
the one which arrives first and attacks the sensors immediately
which makes to senses earlier. Due to the reason that the P
waves are faster wave and produces less shake to the surface
whereas the S wave is the strongest wave and it produces the
greatest shake to the surface of the earth and more damage is
also produced. Thus the sensors sense the P wave first which
initially attacks the surface and then after few seconds or
minutes, the S wave latter hits the surface. Hereby sensors
sensing the P wave earlier send the alert message earlier to the
public immediately.
Thus the accelerometer does it works by sensing the ground
shakes and sending the alert signal to the microcontroller
where decision is taken according to the programmed feature.
Thus the major initial part in the transmitter side of the paper
is determined. The next is about the PIC microcontroller is
designed or programmed in such a way that the alert signal is
transferred to the public until the ground wave hits certain
magnitude level. For example, the microcontroller is
programmed to be 2 magnitudes, thus the waves which is with
2 magnitudes and above then only the warning signal is
delivered to the public. These are the process that is done in
the transmitter side. Well, then the communication technique
has to be followed to deliver the earlier warning signal from
the microcontroller to the PC where it acts as an IOT.
The communication technique used is the ZIGBEE
protocol, where the sensors that are randomly distributed in
the ground senses and microcontroller decides and sends the
alert signal by the zigbee technique.
Normally, the ZIGBEE protocol is preferred due to the low
power consumption, smaller in size, easier to interface
 This full-text paper was peer-reviewed and accepted to be presented at the IEEE WiSPNET 2016 conference.

between the devices and there is no need for modulation also.

The range of the ZIGBEE is about 30 feet. Thus the ZIGBEE
receiver is connected to the PC, which acts as an IOT by
means of RS 232 serial communication cable.

B. Receiver
Fig. 2 shows the block diagram of receiver. In the receiver
side, the PC gets the earlier warning alert signal by the zigbee
receiver at this side.

IOT
ZIGBEE
RS232 PC
MOBILES
(Personal
Computer) Fig. 3 (a) Displaying the numerical values

Fig. (b) describes about the error and the status indicates that
Fig. 2 Block diagram of Receiver the process is good by green tick mark, if the process is not
Here the IOT is deployed, where the objects are connected to good then it indicates by red tick mark. More over the code
the internet and connects to the other things or objects without and the source tab gives details about the error out.
human initialization it works and communicates more
accurately and time efficiently by using internet cloud for
delivering the message in more wise way. Commonly IOT
connects and form of network of internet connected objects.
Eventually by means of an IOT, the warning or alert message
is passed to the public in more effective way to the smart
phone. Even the another way to those who are not using smart
phones then by using the GSM module the alert message can
be sent to the nearby base station and from there the early alert
signal of earthquake is to the authorized numbers and thus
they are warned earlier.
Fig. 3 (b) Displaying the error out
IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Fig. 4 shows the graphical output result for the x, y, z axis as
shown below in the front panel window of the lab view
For the detection of the earth waves it is done by the software in the graphical tab,
sensors where as the data that the sensor senses is sent to the
user’s knowledge by using the database, where the sensor
sensed values are connected to the database by the LABVIEW
software. More over the IOT environment where the alert
signal is sent can be achieved by this software; thereby the
IOT is instrumented by this software. Here in this result
section, earth waves are sensed and transfer the data to the
database where the users are aware of the wave’s condition.
The LABVIEW comprises of two windows,
1) Front panel window
2) Block diagram window
Fig. 3 (a) describes about the details in the front panel window
of the lab view software. The below screenshot shows the
numeric tab that enlightens about the time, date, database of
the earthquake occurring event and the x, y, z axis are the
angles that are sensed by sensors in terms of degree unit is Fig. 4 Graphical view of the x, y and z axis.
shown below, Fig. 4 shows the schematic diagram by which the numerical
and the graphical tab in the front panel window of the lab view
software was created. The below shown is the screen shot of

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 This full-text paper was peer-reviewed and accepted to be presented at the IEEE WiSPNET 2016 conference.
the schematic diagram where the blocks are connected to form
the front panel parameters.
Fig. 5 Schematic diagram of the output
Table I gives the earthquake occurrence in terms of date, time,
and the three axis x, y, z angles which the sensor senses in
terms of degree. It provides a database that it can be viewed by
the user and can be referenced for every time being and stored
for future reference also. If the degree of angle shaking is
more, then the alert message is sent to the public to save
human lives. The below tabulation will be updated in the excel
database for the reference purpose.
TABLE 1 Screenshot of the database values
Thus the output is achieved for the values that are sensed by
the sensors for the x, y, z direction and obtained data are
stored in the database for the user current and future reference.
Thereby the partial part of the software output is achieved.
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The remaining output is that the alert message is delivered to
the public by SMTP where by mail the warning can be sent to
the public by means of IOT. For the people those who are out
of smart phones can also get the warning message by the GSM
module. The detailed explanation is that the sensors detect the
earth shakes and then the alert signal is passed to the nearby
base station. From the base station to the authorized numbers
the warning signal can be passed to the public.
V. CONCLUSION
The proposed concept for the early earthquake warning
system by using the smart way for transferring the alert signal
to smart phones is accomplished by the trending buzz term
IOT. The hardware portion plays the role of detecting and
reading the signal successfully. Thereby the software portion
is to deliver the alert signal to the human which is done by the
trending and most reliable term IOT. The LABVIEW software
helps greatly to interface the hardware kit and to control and
monitor the reading by this software. Thus the each sensors
connected to the others are ended up connected to the gateway
where it is interfaced to the LABVIEW software. The platform
is created in such a way that the sensor reading is monitored in
terms of numerical and graphical representation. And the earth
vibrated reading values can be viewed in the database which
the software does for the reference of the user. It creates a
platform to provide a link between the IOT cloud and the
warning signal. Thus the LABVIEW software helps to achieve
the early warning signal reaches the public. Eventually for the
non smart phones users by GSM module the alert messages
can be reached.
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