Landslide prediction system by wireless sensor network

무선센서 네트워크를 이용한 산사태 모니터링 기초기술 연구

Recently, landslides frequently happen at a natural slope during period of intensive rainfall. With rapidly increasing population of steep terrain in Korea, landslides have become one of the most significant natural hazards. Thus, it is necessary to protect people from landslides and to minimize the damage of houses, roads and other facilities. To accomplish this goal, many landslide prediction methods have been developed in the world. In this study, a simple landslide prediction system that enables people to escape the endangered area is developed. The system is focused to debris flows which happen frequently during periods of intensive rainfall at steep slopes in Kangwondo. This system is based on the wireless sensor network that is composed of sensor nodes, gateway, and server system. Sensor nodes that are composed of sensing part and communication part are newly developed to detect sensitive ground movement. Sensing part is designed to measure tilt angle and acceleration accurately, and communication part is deployed with Bluetooth (IEEE 802.15. I) module to transmit the data to the gateway. To verify the feasibility of this landslide prediction system, a series of laboratory tests is performed at a small-scale earth slope supplying rainfall by artificial rainfall dropping device. It is found that sensing nodes installed at slope can detect the ground motion when the slope failure starts. It is expected that the landslide prediction system by wireless senor network can provide early warnings when landslides such as debris flow occurs, and can be applied to ubiquitous computing city (U-City) that is characterized by disaster free.