Application of an Innovative Monolithic Mechanical Seismometer for Urban Vibroscape Monitoring

Abstract

Urbanization process produces relevant negative impacts that need to be monitored. Within smart cities, extensive networks of standalone environmental sensors, potentially integrable within cloud computing capabilities, should serve as the basis of innovative near real-time monitoring systems, being able to characterize and to detect the variability of urban environmental parameters. While the interest is often concentrated on air quality and acoustic noise, other parameters might be of interest, including vibrations, since they can exert a relevant impact on human health and urban assents (buildings and infrastructures). This work focuses on the application of an innovative broadband monolithic mechanical seismometer, produced and commercialized by Advanced Scientific Sensors and Systems (Adv3S™), used as a stand-alone sensor to detect the features of the vibroscape (i.e.: the totality of vibrations of natural and anthropic origin). Results contain some examples of raw data, measured in the city of Napoli (Italy), proving the effectiveness of the sensor in detecting the urban vibroscape features. The sensor, having a low operational cost and high integrability into data networks, could be relevant in the context of smart cities, considering different applications, ranging from the structural health monitoring of urban assets to civil protection purposes.