Components of a typical PNSN Strong Motion Station:

Station Data Flow

• the sensor converts ground motion to an analog voltage signal
• the digitizer converts analog voltage to digital counts and groups the data into logical packets for export through a serial port
• the terminal server takes the data packets as input through a serial port and wraps each packet in TCP/IP for export over Ethernet.
• data packets are received at the PNSN and merged with data from other PNSN stations
• data are processed for earthquake location and magnitude, as well as parametric data such as peak acceleration.

PNSN Data Acquisition

The data acquisition system of the PNSN is a local implementation Earthworm Data Acquisition System.

Diagram of Data Flow at a Station

Updated May 21, 2003