As previously reported, mageba’s recently developed ROBO®QUAKE monitoring system is the perfect tool for warning and protecting building users in case of an earthquake, and then helping engineers to assess the impact on the structure. As well as providing detailed information about the accelerations experienced by a building at various levels, the off-the-shelf, IoT-compatible monitoring solution can also be programmed to immediately sound an alarm signal or deliver an acoustic message over the building’s PA system, and to send immediate notification by SMS or email to the building’s owner or management. And it can even be used to automatically activate building protection equipment, e.g. for fire protection purposes or to cut off gas lines.

The Solaire Resort & Casino in the Manila metropolitan area is a large complex featuring two 17-storey five-star hotels as well as convention facilities, function rooms, gambling and entertainment facilities, retail premises and parking structures. The complex’s five main buildings have recently been equipped with a ROBO®QUAKE monitoring system, tailored to suit the project’s specific needs. While previously supplied systems have had a separate main data unit for each building, the Solaire system was modified to enable all five buildings to be connected to a single main data unit. The two 17-storey hotel buildings are each equipped with three accelerographs, which measure the 3D accelerations of the structure near the bottom, at mid-height and near the top. The three other buildings, which are considerably lower, required just one accelerograph each (near the top).

As well as accommodating the nine required accelerographs, the main data unit also has extra control channels for the fire system, a public announcement system in four languages and various supplemental accessories. Installation-related challenges included the need to ensure high accuracy and reliability despite the enormous length of the cables between the main data unit and the accelerographs – each up to 1100 m long – and the high amount of electromagnetic interference arising along the cable routes.

Connection of the main data unit to a separate computer enables all data to be further processed, quickly and easily. The connection may be established by cable (e.g. to a laptop during a site visit), or alternatively, around the clock, using mageba’s ROBO®ONE cloud platform – an IoT-optimised cloud backend that was developed especially for ROBO®QUAKE and other mageba Internet-of-Things innovations. Such connectivity can also enable mageba to remotely access and control the system as appropriate, making it possible to provide quick support and troubleshooting – and thus making the system as efficient and user-friendly as such a tool can possibly be.