Project team: Laura Clark, Anthony Privitera, Zachary Roy, Henry Teng
Course: Design of Cyber Physical Systems, fall 2016
Following an earthquake, it is crucial for first responders, engineers, and inspectors to quickly understand the scope and intensity of damage incurred by buildings in a community. Currently, this investigation risks inspectors’ lives and limbs, costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, and still only crudely classifies buildings. PESES (Post-Earthquake Structural Evaluation System) is a proof-of-concept sensor network focused on estimating the level of structural damage that a building has experienced during ground shaking. Upon shaking, acceleration data is recorded and processed — and structural damage is calculated from this data. The system determines a damage rating (good, fair, poor) for the structure and visually presents this rating to the user, on both a website and an LED board. The team’s hope is that PESES, scaled to a web of buildings, could help communities recover more rapidly after earthquakes.
