CrowdQuake+: Data-driven Earthquake Early Warning via IoT and Deep Learning

In recent years, a low-cost micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) acceleration sensor has been widely used for earthquake early warning (EEW). In our previous work, we introduced a networked earthquake detection system, CrowdQuake with three-hundred smartphones’ acceleration sensors and a deep-learning based earthquake detection model. For one year’s operation, CrowdQuake detected a series of earthquakes and collected various earthquake and non-earthquake data. Based on the successful operation of CrowdQuake, in this paper, we discuss how it can be expanded across the country by addressing the following challenges: (1) sensor deployments for highly dense network, (2) earthquake detection performance using a deep learning model, and (3) high performance and scalable system design for big data processing. The improved system is CrowdQuake+ which can deal with acceleration data sent from 8,000 IoT sensors and detect an earthquake in few seconds using a newly proposed detection model. Moreover, CrowdQuake+ stores all acceleration data sent from sensors and assesses their qualities by calculating noise levels. Then, the collected data are used for deep learning model training, so that its detection performance becomes more accurate.