Proper

Abstract

Earthquake early warning systems must be capable of observing P waves (tremors) that spread at a relatively rapid rate and preemptively warn about the risk of damage that can be caused by S waves that subsequently arrive to prompt residents to evacuate immediately. Earthquake early warning systems in South Korea are capable of issuing earthquake warnings within 25 s of detecting the first P waves, and the government has pledged to reduce the time required to issue warning after detecting the first P waves to less than 10 s by 2020. In existing earthquake early warning systems, a seismograph is usually installed at one location within a building and a one-party combined judgment method is used to make earthquake judgments. This not only has low reliability but can also lead to judgment errors. The introduction of new methods for rapid issuance of warning is an issue that must be resolved.
To issue rapid and accurate earthquake early warnings, this study proposes a new three-party combined judgment method that can determine whether an earthquake will occur within a maximum of 5 s after vibrations occur by selecting three major comparison patterns, reprocessing dual sensors as triple sensors, and making sub-judgments and final judgments.
To increase the sophistication of earthquake judgment methods, this paper presents the “three-party combined judgment” analysis engine, which is a pattern-based earthquake identification algorithm that increases the accuracy of risk judgments by comparing information from three or more detection sensors, the vibration status of nearby buildings, the history of past earthquakes, and waveform analysis pattern data. It also presents an earthquake early warning system that was developed based on this analysis engine. The introduction of this system will allow for rapid and accurate issuance of earthquake early warnings and contribute to a reduction in earthquake judgment errors.