MyShake – A smartphone app to detect earthquake

Abstract:

We designed an android app that harnesses the accelerometers in personal smartphones to record earthquake-shaking data for research, hazard information and warnings. The app has the function to distinguish earthquake shakings from daily human activities based on the different patterns behind the movements. It also can be triggered by the traditional earthquake early warning (EEW) system to record for a certain amount of time to collect earthquake data. When the app is triggered by the earthquake-like movements, it sends the trigger information back to our server which contains time and location of the trigger, at the same time, it stores the waveform data on local phone first, and upload to our server later. Trigger information from multiple phones will be processed in real time on the server to find the coherent signal to confirm the earthquakes. Therefore, the app provides the basis to form a smartphone seismic network that can detect earthquake and even provide warnings. A planned public roll-out of MyShake could collect millions of seismic recordings for large earthquakes in many regions around the world.