By Graham K. Rogers

Several countries around the Pacific Ocean Ring of Fire are liable to experience earthquakes a number of times a year. Even a mild quake can cause considerable structural damage to structures. On occasions, the damage extends to building collapses with loss of life and many injuries.

Japan has made considerable investment in technology to monitor the effects of tremors on structures during an earthquake and the the Special Project for Reducing Vulnerability in Urban Mega-Earthquake Disasters, sponsored by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology was started in 2012 and is expected to run for 5 years.

Epson's sensing system, that uses the M-G550-PC intertial measurement unit, has been selected for use in the government's project. This will allow accurate measurement of shaking with a 6-axis inertial measurement unit (IMU). There are 158 IMUs installed for multi-channel measurement at rates of 500 bits per second, enabling data to be monitored on multiple floors at the same time.

The system is installed in a scale model that will be tested between 20 and 22 January 2015, at the Three-Dimensional Full-Scale Earthquake Testing Facility (E-Defense) located in Hyogo, Japan.

This is part of the research being conducted to prepare for a predicted earthquake beneath Tokyo. The government wants to build a system that can rapidly assess integrity of infrastructure and identify damage as soon as possible after an earthquake.

"Given current social and technological changes, Epson believes that the need for precision sensors that can make previously invisible information visible will only grow going forward," said Yoshiyuki Moriyama, chief operating officer of sensing systems at Epson." Epson will continue to leverage its unique technology to provide IMUs and other sensing systems that significantly contribute to our customers' products and services"

Epson have provided a PDF that contains more details of the system.

Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand where he is also Assistant Dean. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs. He is now continuing that in the Bangkok Post supplement, Life.