Building a Smartphone Seismic Network

We are exploring to build a new type of seismic network by using the smartphones. The accelerometers in smartphones can be used to record earthquakes, the GPS unit can give an accurate location, and the built-in communication unit makes the communication easier for this network. In the future, these smartphones may work as a supplement network to the current traditional network for scientific research and real-time applications. In order to build this network, we developed an application for android phones and server to record the acceleration in real time. These records can be sent back to a server in real time, and analyzed at the server. We evaluated the performance of the smartphone as a seismic recording instrument by comparing them with high quality accelerometer while located on controlled shake tables for a variety of tests, and also the noise floor test. Based on the daily human activity data recorded by the volunteers and the shake table tests data, we also developed algorithm for the smartphones to detect earthquakes from daily human activities. These all form the basis of setting up a new prototype smartphone seismic network in the near future.