Update on the California Strong Motion Instrumentation Program’s Progress toward Real Time Data Acquisition and Development of Engineering Related Applications

Dave Branum, & Hamid Haddadi

Submitted September 7, 2025, SCEC Contribution #14478, 2025 SCEC Annual Meeting Poster #TBD

The California Strong Motion Instrumentation Program (CSMIP) network, comprising over 1350 seismic stations, has traditionally operated as a triggered system, where segments of strong motion data are sent into the CSMIP server only when shaking at a station exceeds a set threshold. Once triggered, the recorders connect to the server to transmit the data. Through its involvement in the California Earthquake Early Warning System (CEEWS), CSMIP has upgraded equipment at stations to enable real time capabilities and developed a real time data processing server.

Currently, CSMIP is modernizing seismic equipment, including recorders and communication systems, at all stations. This effort will increase the number of stations capable of real time streaming. These advancements have facilitated the development of new applications leveraging faster data acquisition. For instance, CSMIP, with collaboration from Instrumental Software Technologies, Inc. (ISTI), is working on a real time ground motion map, which will display the maximum shaking at each ground station seconds after an earthquake. This feature will be integrated into the QuakeMap web application.

Additionally, ongoing structural health monitoring projects, for infrastructure such as hospitals and bridges, aim to enable faster data processing and automated notifications when set thresholds are exceeded. These network upgrades will also reduce the time required to share ground motion data on the Center for Engineering Strong Motion Data (CESMD) websites following an earthquake.

Key Words
Earthquake Strong Motion Network emergency response CSMIP

Citation
Branum, D., & Haddadi, H. (2025, 09). Update on the California Strong Motion Instrumentation Program’s Progress toward Real Time Data Acquisition and Development of Engineering Related Applications. Poster Presentation at 2025 SCEC Annual Meeting.

Related Projects & Working Groups
Ground Motions (GM)