By Jon Gabay, contributing writer
We are on the cusp of a new paradigm. The idea that everything can share connectivity, data, and control through a worldwide planetary communications network has profound ramifications on multiple levels. Used for good, this connectivity has numerous positive potentials, and monitoring our planet is a good way to start. Especially if geo-scientific advancements come from industry. Case in point, Omron Electronic Components division in Europe has launched what it calls the world’s smallest class-size seismic sensor for the Internet of Things (IoT).
The D7S is actually a surface-mountable module and acts as a peripheral subassembly over the serial I2C bus as part of an autonomous sensor array for geological study. Designed for low power use, the 2.1- to 5.5-V modules draw up to 90 µA while standing by and 300 µA while processing.
Surface-mountable cloud-based sensors like the D7S seismic sensor are targeting the Internet of Things infrastructure to become omnipresent sensors of our environment.
The main sensing element is a three-axis accelerometer, but the module does not simply measure movement. Onboard processing of the accelerometer signals serves to reject impulse vibration noise so that the module only responds to genuine seismic activity before triggering as an event. The processing calculates a spectral intensity (SI) value that is similar to assessing the magnitude of an earthquake, which allows the module to distinguish between seismic activity and other types of movements.
The SI value is an index that expresses the destructive force of seismic motion and is highly correlated with the actual damage that such motion causes. Technically speaking, SI is the average value of the integrated velocity response spectrum, which provides a much better assessment of damage potential than simply measuring maximum acceleration.
While this module’s advent may not seem like a world-shaking development, it carries with it the potential to avoid disaster in many ways. The module’s small size and low-power requirements mean that modules can be used in numerous applications in which traditional seismic sensing would be impractical and provide immediate local detection and assessment of destructive seismic events.
This immediacy of detection and assessment grants an extended window of opportunity for systems to react before damage actually takes place. Recognizing that a potentially damaging earthquake is underway could, for instance, allow power plants, gas pipelines, and storage facilities to go into emergency mode and shut down to avoid leaks, short-circuits, and the like. Rail overpasses can signal trains to not attempt crossing until the event threat is gone; nuclear facilities can lower control rods and switch to conventional backups until an event has passed; hospitals can start backup power smoothly and isolate themselves from a potentially harmful grid failure; chemical plants can secure volatile compounds.
But wait, there’s more: Seismic sensors can be mounted as shock and failure detection on consumer appliances and machines as well. They can detect, for example, when a gas-fired appliance like a hot water heater is likely to fail in a seismic event and shut down the gas. And from a network of such devices deployed throughout a city reporting back their assessment of local conditions, emergency response services can form a map of probable damage to help prioritize their response efforts. Such capabilities can go a long way toward reducing the carnage of seismic events from the secondary effects of fire, flood, toxic spills, and the like.
Rest assured, as the IoT unfolds, it will be more than motion sensors deployed everywhere. Everything from temperature, pressure, humidity, wind speed, wind direction, light level, radiation level, spectral monitoring, and even audio and video could be gathering real-time data everywhere. We can expect more, even smaller, IoT sensors of all types to emerge.
Source: Omron and Engineerlive.com
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