“Earthquake Detector Using Arduino Uno”

Project report submitted in fulfillment of the requirement for the

degree of
BACHELOR OF TECHNOLOGY
IN
ELECTRONICS AND COMMUNICATION ENGINEERING
By
Bhavishya Pathak (151020)
Prabhat Kumar (151062)
Anmol Sharma (141025)

Under the supervision of

Dr. Rajiv Kumar

JAYPEE UNIVERSITY OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, WAKNAGHAT

May 2019

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page

Number

DECLARATION BY THE SCHOLAR 4

CERTIFICATE 5

ACKNOWLEDEMENT 6

LIST OF FIGURES 7

ABSTRACT 8

CHAPTER-1 INTRODUCTION 9

1.1 Earthquake Causes 11

1.2 Problem Statement 15

1.3 Objective 17

CHAPTER-2 METHODOLOGY 18

2.1. Entity Relationship Diagram 19

2.2. Hardware and Software Requirements 20

2.3. Organization 21

CHAPTER-3 LITERATURE REVIEW 22

3.1. Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) 22

3.2. National Earthquake Information Center (U.S.A) 23

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 3.3. International Platform on Earthquake Early Warning

Systems (IP-EEWS) 25

3.4. Indian Meteorological Department 26

CHAPTER-4 PROJECT DEMONSTRATION 27

4.1. ARDUINO UNO Board 28

4.1.1. Some Of The Pin Functions of ARDUINO UNO

Board 29

4.2. MPU6050 30

4.3. LED and Buzzer 31

4.4. Resistor and Jump Wires 31

4.5. Block Diagram 31

CONCLUSION 32

REFERENCES 33

3
 DECLARATION BY THE SCHOLAR

I hereby declare that the work reported in the B-Tech thesis entitled “Earthquake

Detector Using Arduino” submitted at Jaypee University of Information

Technology, Waknaghat India, is an authentic record of my work carried out under

the supervision of DR. Rajiv Kumar. I have not submitted this work elsewhere for any

degree or diploma.

Bhavishya pathak (151020) ………………..

Prabhat Kumar (151062) …………………..

Anmol Sharma (141025) …………………..

Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering,

Jaypee University of Information Technology, Waknaghat, India

Date

4
 LIST OF FIGURES

Figure Caption Pg. No.

Fig.1. Relationship Diagram 19

Fig.2. Arduino Uno 26

Fig.3. MPU6050 28

Fig.4. LED 30

Fig.5. Resistor 31

Fig.6. Block Diagram 32

Fig.7. Bread Board 34

Fig.8. Arduino IDE 36

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 JAYPEE UNIVERSITY OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
(Established by H.P. State Legislative vide Act No. 14 of 2002)
P.O. Waknaghat, Teh. Kandaghat, Distt. Solan - 173234 (H.P.) INDIA
Website: www.juit.ac.in
Phone No. (91) 01792-257999
Fax: +91-01792-245362

CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that the work reported in the B.Tech project report entitled

“Earthquake Detector using Arduino” which is being submitted by Prabhat Kumar

Singh(151062), Bhavishya Pathak(151020) and Anmol Sharma(141025) in fulfillment

for the award of Bachelor of Technology in Electronics and Communication Engineering

by the Jaypee University of Information Technology, is the record of candidate’s own work

carried out by him/her under my supervision. This work is original and has not been

submitted partially or fully anywhere else for any other degree or diploma.

Dr. Rajiv Kumar

Department of Electronics & Communication Engineering
Jaypee University of Information Technology, Waknaghat.

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my Project Guide Dr. Rajiv Kumar

who aided me in the visualization of this project and for all the frequent intermittent

helps that aided us in carrying out the certain procedures that were essential in the

completion of this project. I’m also very grateful to our Head of department for

rendering us with this precious opportunity to work on such an innovative project,

which turned out to be helpful for me in carrying out a lot of research and I learnt

tons of things all this while.

Moreover I would also like to spare appreciation for my family and friends whose

guidance throughout the project helped me to finish the project within time.

Thanking you,

Bhavishya Pathak (151020)

Prabhat Kumar Singh (151062)

Anmol Sharma (141025)

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 ABSTRACT

Today, Earthquake is a very big problem which causes damage to lives and property. Our

project is an small step to save these losses by giving information about earthquake before

it strikes, this device will depend on the motion in 3-D.

As the motion in any of the three dimensions occurs LED display will start showing the

figures here arduino uno is the central system which can be software tunable and we can

implement signal processing through algorithm where we can define the limits of Motion in

3-D by Checking the data of earthquake from Indian meteorological department, how much

magnitude of earthquake is disastrous setting those figures as upper limit in algorithm if

figures of motion in any of the three dimensions is greater than the fixed upper limit figure

LED light will start to glow and buzzer will start ringing.

This three dimension motion will be detected by the MPU6050 sensor.

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 CHAPTER-1

INTRODUCTION

An earthquake is an unavoidable and unpredictable natural phenomenon that sometime’s

causes damage to lives and property. We cannot stop this phenomenon but we can stay alert

and aware using technology. This project is an initiative, to be stay alert and aware before

the earthquake come. technology we use in this module is very cheap and handy, all the

components are easily available in the market and less power consuming, so that a user do

not have any problem to run the device 24*7 for all 365 days .

This module contains Arduino UNO chip as a central component of device, MPU6050

sensor is the brain of module which detects all the motions in 3 dimensions, inductor &

capacitors to match the impedance with the input impedance of module so that it cannot

damage the device, transistor used for switching the circuit, wires for connections, LED &

Buzzer used as an output indicator, LED display to get the output figures of motion in 3-D,

At last a Breadboard to implement all the components to complete the desired circuit .

Now this device is to be mounted in the buildings, buzzer and led light will aware the

members of building about the earthquake with all the parameters so that they can evacuate.

Earthquake is the trembling caused in the surface of the earth, which is caused by the

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immediate energy release plates in the lithosphere layer of the earth which is resulted into

creating waves referred to as the seismic waves.

Earthquake is caused by a vibration that occurs on the earth surface. It is the shaking of the

Earth surface that is referred to as the earthquake. Earthquakes differ in parameters from

the ones that can be hardly felt to the ones that are capable of tossing buildings around.

Earthquakes can also lead to landslides and can often cause volcanic activities. It is capable

of even causing a tsunami as with the earth’s tectonic plates shaking it can lead to raised

water levels and therefore various water calamities. The point where the earthquake is

caused or the initial rupture is referred to as the focus or hypocenter or epicentre. Many

casualties occur during this time including the loss of lives and properties. Hence, the

earthquake detector.

Earthquake detector is a safety device that can be used in homes as it senses the earth’s

seismic vibrations which can be used to alert the people a few seconds an earthquake

occurs. The waves that are emitted by this device are of two types: dangerous wave and

small wave that can be used to vacate accordingly. As the small wave travels faster, so it is

easier to be detected first if your house is located a few kilometres away from the centre of

the earthquake to occur. It can be used to monitor entry passages and therefore it is an ideal

device for the detection. It has been depicted as a design to sense the compression wave

which is referred to as the small wave of an earthquake which comes before the more

destructive wave referred to as the shear wave. This circuit removes the guesswork as it

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saves worthy seconds in earthquake detection. It is capable of working on a large scale area

and is capable of detecting both minor to moderate earthquakes around the local area and

many miles around it. It prevents the possibility of confusion, saves valuable time and

many lives along with it as it eases the mind and helps it to find peace with this possibility.

Although we are working with Arduino Uno board but it can also work in combination with

other devices like gas valve.

The device including gas valve contains a highly sensitive lever which is attached to spring

and then a weight is connected to lever by a screw. It has a delay off circuit which is used

to drive piezoelectric buzzer.

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1.1. EARTHQUAKE CAUSES

• Earthquakes can be caused by two ways: natural or caused by humans. The

constructions and deforestation of the green belt are the causes of many calamities.

The trees help in binding the soil which helps in preventing landslides and

earthquakes. The deforestation of these jungles or green belt leaves the soil loose

and more prone to fall free.

• Earthquakes are mostly caused due to the tear of the geological faults and also by

various other disasters such as landslides, mine blast, volcanic eruptions, and

nuclear tests. These disasters cause the cosmic plates to fall apart which leads to

earthquakes. They cause imbalance in the earth surface and leads to loss of lives and

property.

• On the surface of earth, earthquakes occur due to the shaking and displacing or

disrupting the earth’s surface. These causes the casualties on life and on properties.

• Tectonic earthquake may occur anywhere in the surface of the earth, where there is

enough stored elastic strain energy for driving fracture propagation within a fault

region. The movements within these tectonic plates cause disruption of the plates

and fractures the planes within that region. These often cause the upliftment of the

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 plates as the position cannot be the achieved as it was placed earlier. Some even

cause the downfall of the plates which results in the large gap within the plates as

the plates cannot be placed in their original places.

• The release of this energy which was stored as a combination of radiated elastic

strain seismic waves, breaking of rocks and fault surface heating caused by friction,

which causes an earthquake. This breaking of rocks often results in the growing of

the land mass and thus may cause calamities as the sea or water level may increase

which can cause damage to the lives and the surroundings. The fault surface heating

caused by the friction between the tectonic plates may result in the causing of an

earthquake. The radiated elastic strain of the seismic waves causes disruption within

the earth surface and causes the moving of the plates within the surface of the earth.

• The three important types of faults that can cause an earthquake within the plates

are:-

o Reverse

o Strike – slip

o Normal

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 • Any seismic activity in the earth surface is used to describe the earthquake. These
seismic events disrupt the actual layout of the earth crust thus resulting in mountains

and valleys, which are the result of the inappropriate and the disruption of the earth

crust and the alignment of the earth’s tectonic plates.

1.2. PROBLEM STATEMENT

Earthquake is an unpredictable natural phenomenon which can cause a massive destruction.

As we take an example of Nepal on 25april 2015 men and women are in regular routine of

their work and children ran about happily on school playgrounds. None of them could

foresee the incredible destruction that is going to be occurred.

The 7.8magnitude earthquake strikes at the country’s core 9000 people died that day.

Many scientists have performed various experiments to detect the earthquake, because even

a 60seconds warning can save the lives.

First time Earthquake is detected using piezoelectric pressure sensors and three steel balls

and magnet tied with vertical rode to detect the magnitude of earthquake.

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Main problem of earthquake detectors is they are not able to predict earthquake very early

for this we need specialized sensors those can detect the seismic waves generated by the

movement of tectonic plates.

Sr.no. Place Deaths Date Magnitude () Epicenter

1. Indian ocean >2.5L December26, 9.1-9.3 West coast of

2004 Indonesia

2. Kashmir >1.3L October8, 7.6 Muzaffarabad

2005 Pakistan

3. Bihar and >30K January15, 8.7 South of Mt

Nepal 1934 .Everest

4. Gujarat >20K January26, 7.7 Kutch,

2001 Gujarat

5. Kangra >20K April4, 1905 7.8 Himalayas

1.3. OBJECTIVE

This project is aimed for designing and development of earthquake alarm detection circuit

based on electronic devices which will be helpful to save lives and property.

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Main objective is to detect S-waves (seismic waves) or we can say high frequency

vibrations at the Arduino uno input through MPU6050 sensor .which will give us an

indication about earthquake before it strikes at the core of that place.

Another thing is to make a device compact, cheap and error free because earthquake is a

very big event in this error may cause very big loss.

To make a device error free we have to find a position where the device should be mounted

on the building which will sense the best frequency vibrations, and the device should not

damage until the building do not fall.

Because the device has done its work it alarmed all the members of building to escape

before the building fall over.

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 CHAPTER-2

METHODOLOGY

The primary techniques used in developing earthquake detector is the motion in 3-D for

this we use Arduino uno and a highly sensitive accelerometer MPU6050 is presented that

can indicate vibrations,

We know accelerometer like MPU6050 are highly sensitive to knocks and vibrations in any

of the three physical axes so this device can be modified and used as a knock and shake

detector of ATM’s, vehicles or door break alarm, But its main work is to detect Earthquake.

MPU6050 gives analogue voltage imposed to equivalent acceleration, it has three output

one each for three X-,Y-,Z-axes, three analogue outputs are input to Arduino uno ADC

pins. By this way acceleration is detected by accelerometer and simultaneously by Arduino

ADC pin.

If motion is violent enough during an earthquake and crosses the threshold value alarm

light LED glows, a buzzer sounds as an indicator of earthquake in the core of the land

where the building is situated.

Threshold adjustment button is there to carry out different task. An LCD is used to verify

threshold value and to make system user friendly.

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2.1. Entity Relationship Diagram

In the given Fig(1), we can see the relationship and connections of all the components of

the Earthquake detector .

Fig(1)

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2.2 Hardware and Software Requirements:

For the product to have the capacity to run effectively on PCs, it needs certain equipment

segments or some product to be available. The product necessities are:

i. Arduino Software IDE.

ii. Operating System.

The hardware requirements are:

i. ArduinoUNO

ii. MPU6050

iii. LCD

iv. Capacitor (100nF)

v. Inductor

vi. Resistor

vii. Transistor (BC548)

viii. LED

ix. Bread board

x. Buzzer

xi. Wires

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2.3. Organization

As we know earthquake is unpredictable we cannot stop this natural phenomenon but

precautions can be taken so that we can save livelihood and some amount of precious thing

for this thing to be done we need some time space between the space of shocks. .

This time space is governed by many government and private authorities that continuously

track the data of tectonic plate movements from the high frequency vibrations by the

devices.

Some of the world’s government authority who keep the check in their countries:

i. Indian Meteorological department

ii. National disaster management authority

iii. UNESCO

iv. U.S. geological society (USGS)

There are many organizations those who work on the earthquake, different countries of

world have different organizations but UNESCO is an UN government based organization

gets a world level donations to work on all the natural disasters occurring in the world.

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 CHAPTER-3

LITERATURE REVIEW

Such a large number of looks into have been done identifying the problem of Earthquake,

as it is a major problem for world. It can’t be stopped but precautions and detection of it is

possible so that to give sometime space to escape from disastrous place. In order to get this

time space many of researches has been done by the scientists and other organizations those

who are working for safety from the earthquake.

Some of the most important researches on earthquake detection in past and in current years

are:

3.1 Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA):

The Japan meteorological agency has developed an earthquake early warning system to

release information in the event of earthquake, and the system used in 2007. Meanwhile,

structural health monitoring technology has been attracting attention from those who want

to save time in determining the structural health of buildings. Practical application of this

technology, have also begun. Seismic isolated buildings have been developed to protect

building structures and keep properties safe from earthquakes and this is significantly

effective means to protect.

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The technology is based on past experiences of the great Hanshin Earthquake in 1995.

Seismic disaster prevention technologies have been further developed since then against the

large scale damage to buildings and losses of human life which could be incurred by

earthquakes. This should be a system as safe addition to the current situation and

earthquake and earthquake disaster prevention of structure itself.

3.2 National Earthquake information center (U.S.A):

NEIC is the part of USGS established in 1966. It was made part of USGS in1973.

• NEIC determines the location and size of all destructive earthquakes that occur worldwide

and disseminates the information to the appropriate national or international agencies,

government public information channels, news media, scientists and scientific groups, and

the general public.

• With the advent of the USGS Earthquake Notification Service (ENS), notifications of

earthquakes detected by the ANSS/NEIC are provided free to interested parties. Users of

the service can specify the regions of interest establish notification thresholds of earthquake

magnitude, designate whether they wish to receive notification of aftershocks, and even set

different magnitude thresholds for daytime or night time to trigger a notification.

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• For earthquake outside the United States, the NEIC notifies the state Department

operations center and often sends alerts directly to staff at American embassies and

consulates in the effective countries, to the international Red Cross, the U.N. Department of

humanitarian affairs, and other recipients who have made arrangements to receive alerts.

3.3 International Platform on Earthquake Early Warning Systems (IP-

EEWS):

UNESCO has been very active in promoting international cooperation, scientific

knowledge exchange and capacity building for the development and implementation of

geo-hazard Early warning systems, including Earthquake Early Warning Systems (EEWS),

Worldwide. The sendai framework for disaster risk reduction 2015-2030 recognizes the

need to “substantially increase the availability of, and access to, multi-hazard early warning

systems and disaster risk information and assessments to the people by 2030” as one of its

global targets while considerable progress has been made in recent decades in the field of

early warning Systems for specific hazards and significant challenges remain in advancing

the development of Early Warning Systems for specific hazards, particularly for sudden-

onset hazards such as earthquakes. An earthquake early warning system (EEWS) helps in

disseminating timely information about potentially catastrophic earthquake hazards to the

public, Emergency managers and private sector to provide enough time to implement

automatized emergency measures. At the same time, these helps to reduce considerably the

23
CO2 emissions produced by catastrophic impacts and subsequent effects of earthquakes,

such as those generated by fires, collapses, and pollution, as well as those produced in the

recovery and reconstruction processes. In addition, EEWS can be better considered in risk

management, emergency planning, disaster management, climate change adaption, and risk

communication in order to reduce Natech risks.

3.4 Indian Meteorological Department:

To upgrade basic leadership. This has offered ascend to the development of smart

frameworks or instruments that encourage fast access to pertinent substance found in the

Internet. For creating nations like Nigeria, the travel industry is one of the undiscovered yet

conceivably huge pay generators. There are around 142 vacationer goals that spread over

the 36 conditions of the government republic of Nigeria. Though some exist normally,

others are artificial.

In this time has seen fast advances in data innovation, data over-burden has turned into a

difficult issue to those looking for data on the web. As of late, savvy seek components have

been sent on the web that demonstrates that the issue of data over-burden can be halfway

disposed of by furnishing a stage with more knowledge to help voyagers in the scan for

important data. Google.com is a case of an insightful internet searcher that helps clients

24
with data and another class of keen framework that has demonstrated applicable in tending

to the issue of data over-burden is recommender frameworks.

The objective of this exploration is to structure and actualize keen stage that will help

voyagers in Nigeria to approach data on vacationer areas in this way help attach their basic

leadership process.

25
 CHAPTER-4

PROJECT DEMONSTRATION

4.1. ARDUINO UNO BOARD:-

Fig(2)

It is a microcontroller board which contains microchip ATMEGA328P. There are 14 digital

pins and 6 analog i/o pins. Arduino IDE software is used to program this board. A type B

cable is used to connect computer and Arduino board. An external source between 7-20

volts can be used to power this board. The microchip ATMEGA328P is pre-programmed.

Boot-loader is used to upload new code in this microchip. It has flash, EEPROM storage of

26
32 kb. 0.5kb of this 32kb is used by boot loader. Operating voltage of this board is 5v. It

consists of 2kb SRAM memory. Weight is around 25g. 6 of the digital pins give PWM

output.

This board has various facilities for communication with other microcontrollers. There is a

library named software serial, which allows serial communication for all digital pins. There

is no need to press the reset button before an upload because this board allows to reset by

software. This board basically works as brain of this project.

4.1.1. Some Of The Pin Functions Of Arduino Uno Board:-

• LED:-

Digital pin 13 is used to give input to LED. When the pin is set to low, LED is Off and

when high, LED turns On.

• 5V:-

This pin gives output of 5v and can be used to give input to other microcontrollers.

• Vin:-

It is used to supply voltage. We access this pin to supply voltage using power jack.

• SPI:-

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 This stands for serial peripheral interface. Pin number 10, 11, 12 and 13 support

communications via SPI library.

• TWI:-

This stands for two wire interface. Using wire library SDA and SCL pins support this

type of communication.

4.2. MPU 6050:-

Fig(3)

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It is a motion tracking device and basically works as a sensor. It is a 6 axis device which

consists of 3 axis for gyroscope and 3 for accelerometer. It also has processor for digital

motion. It uses I2C for communication. It works on 3.3V input. The DMP is used for

processing algorithms related to motion. DMP provides motion data which it takes from

gyroscope and accelerometer.

The 8 pins of MPU6050 are:-

• INT :

This pin stands for interrupt. It is a digital o/p pin.

• AD0:

It is a slave I2C pin and 0th bit address in device. When connected with VCC logic is

read as 1.

• XCL:

It is a oxcillary clock pin which is used for connecting with other I2C sensors.

• SCL:

This pin stands for serial clock and used for connecting to SCL of other

microcontrollers.

• SDA:

This pin stands for serial data and used for connecting to SDA of other

microcontrollers.

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 • GND:

This pin stands for ground and is used for ground connection.

• VCC:

This pin is used to supply DC power.

4.3. LED and Buzzer:

These are used as indicators. Buzzer makes an alarming sound when an earthquake is

detected and LED glows red.

Fig 4 LED

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4.4. Resistor and Jump Wires:

Fig 5 1 k resistor

It is used to complete connections and makes the circuit complete.

4.5. Block Diagram:

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Fig(6)

32
Fig. 7 Bread Board

4.6 Arduino IDE used for coding

The open source Arduino software(IDE) was used to write the code. This softwares makes

very easy to write and upload code in Arduino uno board. We can run it either on Windows

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or MAC OS. The code is written in java and based on other open source software. The code

is upload to Arduino Uno board using b type usb cable.

Fig. 8

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 CHAPTER-5

CONCLUSION

• Earthquake has been a very often occurring disaster which needs proper alarming

devices.

• Since digital devices available in the market are rather expensive, the technology

we offer is comparatively very cheap and easily accessible.

• Since it is a light weight device it can be carried along and can be readily used.

• This device also ensures information or detection and alarming at the level where

only minor shocks occur, the inhabitants can take action accordingly and can

inform others and generate awareness among others.

• It is more reliable as the circuits used are easily available and because of it small

size and lightweight it is mobile which makes using this device a lot easier.

• It can be used by anyone and anywhere as the usage of this device is not very

technical and can be easily used by anyone anywhere.

• The device contains an LED which glows red even when the minor shocks occur

and the buzzer can alarm from a distance and even when the residents are sound

asleep.

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 REFERENCES

• International journal of engineering trends and technology(IJETT) –VOLUME 12

NUMBER 3- JUN 2014 Wireless earthquake alarm system using atmega328p and

adxl335

• International journal of research in advent technology, vol. 4, n0.8,august 2016 E-

ISSN:2321-9637

• AKI, K. (1965).Maximum likelihood estimate of b in the formulae login=a-bm and

its confidence limits. Bull . earthquake res. Inst. Tokyo university,43, 237-239

• Ringdal , f.(1975). On the estimation of sysmic detection thresholds. B.S.S.A.,66,

789-802

• 13th world conference on earthquake engineering, august 2004, paper no. 908

• Nakamura, Y, “research and development of intelligent earthquake disaster

prevention system, Japan society of civil engineers, no.531/I-34, pp.1-33, jan 1996.

• IJMEC Earthquake alarm detector microcontroller based circuit EISSN 2305 0543

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