MEMS-based system for structural health monitoring and earthquake observation in Sicily Antonino D’Alessandro 1 , Giovanni Vitale 1,2 and Salvatore Scudero 1 1 Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Osservatorio Nazionale Terremoti, Rome, Italy antonino.dalessandro@ingv.it 2 Dipartimento Scienze della Terra e del Mare DiSTeM, Università degli Studi di Palermo, 90123 Palermo, Italy Abstract. The implementation of systems for Structural Health Monitoring and Earthquake Observation is increasing in the last years owing to the development of new technologies which enable low-cost and small-size devices to be installed in large-scale or high-density applications. This paper introduces the implemen- tation of monitoring systems, either for structural health assessment and earth- quake observation. The applications are based in Sicily (Italy), a region charac- terized by a high seismic hazard and where the buildings are often old and vul- nerable. The system relies on a MEMS (Micro Electro-Mechanical Systems) sensor, a 3-axial accelerometer which has been specifically selected in order to ensure the suitability for the specific applications: accelerations from 10 0 to 10 2 Hz. We present the details of the designed monitoring station, of the network ar- chitecture, and some of the recorded data. Keywords: Structural health monitoring, Urban seismic network, Earthquake observation, Seismic risk reduction. 1. Introduction The implementations of systems for Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) and Earth- quake Observation (EO) are highly increasing in the last years, when the limitations deriving from the traditional systems have been overcome. Such limitations basically consist in the high costs of the traditional instruments and in the difficulty to maintain, the monitoring systems in the long-term (e.g. a decade or more) after their implementa- tion. For this reason the SHM and EO systems have been usually limited to small-scale or low-density applications with poor technical and scientific results. The advance- ments in term of miniaturization, sensitivity, and quality of data made possible to over- come the compromise between technical-scientific needs and the economic affordabili- ty. As a consequence, the implementation of SHM and EO increased really fast in re- cent time. Refer to [1, 2] for an overview of the applications in Italy. Kinematic (acceleration, velocity, displacements), physical (temperature, humidity), or mechanical (forces, strain) parameters can be monitored by means of different types of sensors [3]. The traditional inertial sensors for the measure of kinematics parameter are based on a spring-mass mechanism and have heavy proof masses making them bulky EWSHM2020, 529, v5 (final): ’MEMS-based system for structural health monitoring and . . . 1