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Seismologist Robot Can Predict Earthquakes Hours Early

by Amar Toor on February 7, 2010 at 10:01 AM

As Monday morning quarterbacks around the world continue to discuss the structural, long-term steps that could've been taken to mitigate the enormous damage inflicted upon Haiti, a group of engineering students in India have designed a new robot that may help dampen the effects of an earthquake in the short-term. Inspired by the horror they saw unfurl in Haiti, students from JT Engineering College in Surat, India went about designing a robot capable of sensing earthquakes before they happen, and sounding the alarm bells. As student Hiran Patel explains, the so-called Earthquake Detector Robot senses "when the Earth starts vibrating," and "informs about the danger in advance."

It does so with the help of two transmitters and one receiver that have been attached to the robot. The transmitters are wirelessly connected to a sensor underground, which monitors the earth's temperature and water levels. When the sensor picks up on seismic trouble approaching, it sends out a signal to the robot via microwave frequencies. As DVice reports, the bot can pick up on earthquakes a full three hours before they hit, which to us, seems pretty amazing. We've gotta admit, though, that we don't really understand why this kind of detection service has to be implemented in a robot, per se. Unless the system's effectiveness is somehow dependent upon being mobile, we're a bit puzzled by the choice to go bot--especially when there are a few smaller, non-cyborg detection devices already on the market. But robotics aside, the underlying technology seems pretty sound, and if it can help people get out of Dodge and save lives, that's all that really matters, anyway. [From: OneIndia; via: DVice]


Tags: detection, earthquake, earthquake detector robot, EarthquakeDetectorRobot, haiti, robots, top

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