Seismograph Design for Landslide Monitoring in the Andean Region Using Automatic Control Techniques and Mathematical Modeling

Abstract

The countries of the Andean area, in particular Colombia, suffer great problems related to landslides of large amounts of soil. These landslides occur due to high mountain deforestation caused by inadequate agricultural practices and the large volume of rainfall in this region. Therefore, it is important to detect information about telluric movements and small vibrations to avoid ecological disasters and dangers for humanity, as well as to determine if the surface can be used to cultivate without erosive problems, thus minimizing economic risks for producers. Seismographs based on accelerometers and geophones are suitable for detecting small vibrations in the earth produced by erosion and movements of groundwater that can prevent soil instability. In this paper, a seismograph prototype is presented, which is based on the use of a high sensitivity accelerometer and a mathematically designed geophone. The proposed seismograph produces as output a spectrum of frequencies of the different types of movements that are damped by automatic control techniques, which serves as a base of information for the generation of reports on soil management and disaster prevention. In addition, the architecture of hardware and software used in the construction of the seismograph allows the connection to the network of several devices that can be distributed in different critical places.