Rowhome Vibration Monitoring

Inspiration

The Philadelphia Inquirer published a series of articles about rowhomes in Philly being damaged by nearby construction. While working on a vibration monitoring project for work, I realized that inexpensive tools from my industry could help to solve this problem.

What it does

An IoT device including a set of accelerometers can be attached to walls of vulnerable homes to detect when walls are shaking enough to cause structural damage and create an electronic record of the damaging activity.

The devices can be easily programmed to send out an alert if the walls shake more than the maximum allowed vibration according to the Philadelphia Code of Ordinances:

(11) Excessive Vibration. No person shall create or cause, or permit the creation of, vibration levels that exceed 0.15 inches per second beyond any property boundary or 30 yards from any moving source.

How we built it

I identified an off-the-shelf tool to collect the data and connect to the internet. Proposed equipment:

Accelerometer: https://www.st.com/en/evaluation-tools/steval-stwinkt1b.html

and

Wi-Fi module: https://www.st.com/en/evaluation-tools/steval-stwinwfv1.html

or

LTE module: https://www.st.com/en/evaluation-tools/steval-stmodlte.html

Challenges we ran into

Finding legal resources and community organizations that can identify vulnerable homes and make use of the data collected by the IoT devices.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Bringing attention to this issue, providing a piece of a solution, and learning about contacts to help move the project forward.

What we learned

This is a problem affecting many stakeholders around Philadelphia. Since construction activity is temporary, people may be able to share equipment effectively.

What's next for Rowhome Vibration Monitoring

Reaching out to organizations which are already working on different angles for addressing this issue.

Built With

• stmicroelectronics