1. ABSTRACT
A wireless sensor network is proposed for monitoring building to assess eartquake damage.
Rapid advances in computation sensing and data transmission techniques such as RFID
technology,Micro-Electro-Mechanical systems(MEMS) and low power wireless networking, offer
hope of a new generation of small and inexpensive networked sensors. The senor nodes are custom-
developed capacitive micro electro mechanical systems strain and 3-D acceleration sensors and a
low powert readout application specified integrated circuit for a batery life of upto 12 years. The
strain sensors are mounted at the base of the building to measure the settlement and plastic hnge
activation of the building after an earthquake. The accelerometer are mounted at every floor of the
building to measure the sesimic response of the building during an earthquake. They record during
an earthquake event using a combination of the local acceleration data from multiple sensors
acceleration data from multiple sensors across the buildng. Alow powr multi-hop network
architecture was implemented for transmission of data. A custom patch antenna was designed in the
frequency band to obtain robust links in real world condition.