How Well Can We Extract the Permanent Displacement from Low-Cost MEMS Accelerometers?

• Main Authors: Jyh Cherng Jan, Wei-An Chao, Yih-Min Wu, Chien-Chih Chen, Cheng-Horng Lin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2017-11-01
• Series: Sensors
• Subjects: low-cost MEMS accelerometers; earthquake permanent displacement; seismic hazard mitigation; P-Alert
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/17/11/2643

Following the recent establishment of a high-density seismic network equipped with low-cost micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) P-wave-alert-device (P-Alert) by the earthquake early warning (EEW) research group at the National Taiwan University, a large quantity of strong-motion records from moderate-magnitude earthquakes (ML > 6) around Taiwan has been accumulated. Using a data preprocessing scheme to recover the dynamic average embedded within the P-Alert data, we adopted an automatic baseline correction approach for the P-Alert accelerograms to determine the coseismic deformation (Cd). Comparisons between the Cd values determined using global positioning system (GPS) data, strong-motion records from the P-Alert network, and data from the Taiwan Strong Motion Instrumentation Program (TSMIP) demonstrates that the near-real-time determination of Cd values (>2 cm), which provide crucial information for seismic hazard mitigation, is possible using records from low-cost MEMS accelerometers.