2017 Eleventh International Conference on Sensing Technology (ICST)

Compensation Techniques for Geophone Response

Used as Vibration Sensor in Seismic Applications
Navid Hakimitoroghi Dr. Rabin Raut Dr. Mehrdad Mirshafiei Dr. Ashutosh Bagchi
Department of Electrical and Department of Electrical and Sensequake Department of Building, Civil and
Computer Engineering Computer Engineering mehrdad@sensequake.com Environmental Engineering
Concordia University Concordia University Concordia University
Montreal, Quebec Montreal, Quebec Montreal, Quebec
navid.h307@gmail.com rabinr@ece.concordia.ca ashutosh.bagchi@concordia.ca

Abstract—With prolific usage of vibration analysis to extract 10Hz, the response decrease 12dB per decade (implying a
information about different structures (buildings and bridges second order filter). Fig.2 shows the geophone response versus
etc.), vibration sensors have become an important device in frequency in three different situations. The shunt resistance is
Structural Health Monitoring (SHM). In this paper, we target
geophone which is a commonly used sensor in SHM. Each determined by the first cascaded circuit following the geo-
geophone is unique with regard to application, sensitivity, and phone, in the sensor conditioning system. Different structures,
electrical characteristics. For the geophone that has been used in specially buildings, have vibration frequencies below 10Hz
this study, we focused on the low frequency response to develop an [2]. Therefore, we need to extend the low-frequency end of
optimum conditioning circuit for the sensor. Geophone response the response of the geophone.
compensator is essential for conditioning vibration signals at very
low frequencies. In this article, we have presented two different
techniques to reconstruct the low frequency response charac-
teristics of the geophone. Several analog electronic circuits to
establish the feasibility of the suggested techniques for vibration
signal conditioning by the geophone on hand are presented in
this article.
I. I NTRODUCTION
A seismic sensor is an instrument that measures the ground
motions and gives a physical variable related to these motions.
Geophones measure the velocity by generating a voltage from
a coil that freely moves in a magnetic field. Fig.1 shows the
general structure of geophones. We have used GS-11D series
of geophone from Geospace Technologies Inc. in this work.
Full component characteristics is available in [1].

Fig. 2. GS-11D frequency response [1]

In previous studies on the displacement sensors, in some

Fig. 1. Geophone Structure
The geophone has a flat response after about 10Hz which
is the corner frequency of the device. For frequencies below
case the sensor structure has been changed to compensate the
low frequency effects like that authors proposed at [3]. In other
studies, a prototype has been proposed to catch the vibration
in specific frequencies [4]. In what follows, we will present
several circuits that can compensate for the shortcoming of the
frequency response of the available geophone without changes
in geophone structure. In section II, we present a circuit model
of the geophone to be used to introduce the compensation
circuits. In section III, we introduce the first compensating
circuit that leads to compensation by way of active circuit
components. In section IV, we present the inverse transfer

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 2017 Eleventh International Conference on Sensing Technology (ICST)

function method. Laboratory experimental results are added

in section V, followed by conclusion.

II. E LECTRICAL M ODEL FOR THE G EOPHONE

In [5], the author used the geophone mechanical character-
istics to achieve values of resistors, capacitors, and inductors
to represent geophone behavior. The model is shown in Fig.3.

Fig. 5. Parallel impedance for geophone response compensation

in parallel circuit as a coefficient of the Cg and Rg in

Fig. 3. Geophone model used in [5] numerical analysis. So we considered:

However, they present a third order system to model the
geophone behavior. Using curve fitting techniques for the plots
in Fig.2, one obtains a second order system that could as well
serve our purpose. This second order circuit is shown in Fig.4
Rp = αRg and Cp = βCg (2)
We constrained the values of α and β as integer values from
−100 to +100. Numerical analysis on the equivalent transfer
function of the geophone after adding the Rp and Cp showed
that maximum backward stretching happen at α = −2 and β =
−4. Both geophone transfer function and backward stretched
transfer function are shown in Fig.6.
To obtain negative resistor and capacitor for lab experiments,

Fig. 4. Proposed geophone model

The transfer function of the circuit in Fig.4 is:

Rg
s2 + s
Lg
Hg (s) = (1)
Rg 1
s2 + s( )+
Lg Lg C g
In the transfer function, the values of elements are calculated
as: Rg = 380Ω and Cg = 91.0507μF , Lg = 2.7820H. Based
on the simulations, this transfer function is matched with what Fig. 6. Result of compensation by adding parallel RC
the geophone manufacturer is reported in plot A of Fig. 2. This
model is verified by comparing the values from the simulation we can use Miller theorem [6]. Based on this theorem (see
and the result of experiments that is explained in section V. Fig.7):
Z
III. G EOPHONE C OMPENSATION BY PASSIVE E LEMENTS Zin = (3)
1 − Av
At first, we tried to decrease the corner frequency of the
geophone by adding a passive impedance box in parallel Where Av is the gain of amplifier module in Fig.7.
with the geophone. In other words, we have used backward Although using negative resistor and capacitor could shift
bandwidth stretching technique to recover the output signal of back the corner frequency from 10Hz to 5Hz, we still have
geophone for frequencies lower than 10Hz. Testing different the same concern for the frequencies lower than 5Hz. The
settings and components leads us to use a serial RC in parallel equivalent transfer function remains a high pass filter.
with the geophone (Fig.5). We kept the values of components

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 2017 Eleventh International Conference on Sensing Technology (ICST)

Fig. 7. Negative impedance using voltage amplifier

IV. G EOPHONE C OMPENSATION BY I NVERSE T RANSFER

F UNCTION M ETHOD
For the second scenario, we tried using active elements to
change the equivalent transfer function to a low pass filter. Fig. 8. Full compensator circuit before amplification
Theoretically, we can cancel out the zeros and poles of a
transfer function by multiplying it with cascaded stages. In this
way, we can change a high pass filter to a low pass filter. We
can rewrite the numerator of the geophone transfer function
as:
Rg
N umerator(H(s)) = s(s + ) (4)
Lg
Then we need two cascaded stages of first order filters to
cancel out these two zeros. For the zero at s = 0 an integrator,
and for the zero at s = Rg/Lg a lossy integrator have
been considered. Transfer function of the whole system after
cascading these stages will be:

Rg
s2 + s
Lg K1 K2
He (s) = ∗ ∗ (5)
Rg 1 1 C2 s
s2 + s( ) + s+
Lg Lg Cg C 1 R1 Fig. 9. Geophone response after compensation
Lg
In the Eq.5, if we select the values of R1 C1 = , after
Rg
simplification we have: V. E XPERIMENTAL R ESULTS

K 1 K2
C2
He (s) =
R g 1
s2 + s( ) +
Lg Lg Cg
Which is a low pass filter transfer function. The circuit, with
the mentioned transfer function is showed in Fig.8.
In Fig.8 the values of R2 and R3 just affect the overall gain
of the transfer function. This gain can be adjusted later if
needed. Fig.9 shows the response of the geophone based on
the Eq.5 as derived above. In Fig.8 the values of R2 and R3
just affect the overall gain of the transfer function. This gain
can be adjusted later if needed. Fig.9 shows the response of the
geophone based on the Eq.6 as derived above The equivalent
transfer function after compensation become a low pass filter.
Therefore, for the required range of frequency, the circuit in
Fig.8 will have a flat response. From the Fig.9, the gain of the
circuit is around 13dB. To use full range of the high resolution
ADC which would follow the Geophone compensator circuit,
we have used a stage of non-inverting amplifier to increase
the total gain to 40dB.
Firstly, to make sure about the model that have been used
in the simulations, we had to compare results of the simulated
(6) circuit with the response of the geophone in the lab. Since
a commercial shake table with operating frequency of less
than 5Hz was not available, to expose certain frequency to
the geophone we have used a loud speakers to form a shaker
device. An amplified pulse wave from the signal generator
is fed to the loud speaker. As a result, the shaker structure
simulates a small hit to the geophone at certain frequency.
The geophone output then is converted by a precise ADC and
the digital data stored in a computer for analysis by software.
In Fig.11 the solid line is the geophone impulse response
from the circuit simulation software and the circles represent
the results of exciting the geophone with different frequencies
from the shaker on the lab-bench. In the lab tests the
geophone did not respond noticeably for the vibrations below
0.7Hz (we can see this effect on Fig.12), therefore the
experimental dots appear from about 0.7Hz. To match the
plots, after reading the output values of the geophone in the
lab, we normalized both plots. In this way, for the frequencies

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 2017 Eleventh International Conference on Sensing Technology (ICST)
Fig. 10. Geophone response to 1Hz square wave
above 10Hz, both plots matched with some differences on
the curves above and around 30Hz. After verifying the model
Fig. 11. Geophone Response. experiment vs. simulation
that have been used in the simulations, we have used the
same shaker to evaluate the compensator circuit. The test is
similar to what is proposed in [7] but using physical hits
instead. In the tests, we tried to cover the frequencies of
interest with desired frequency resolution. In tests with the
geophone on the lab bench, two conditioning circuits have
been considered for the geophone. In the first setting, the
geophone response is amplified by an amplifier that has a
flat response in our frequency band of interest. In this way,
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the transfer function of the system becomes like a high pass
filter. In the second setting, the amplifier has been replaced
by an integrator cascaded by a lossy integrator. This two
stages change the transfer function of the system to a low
pass filter as explained in section IV.
In Fig.10 we can see the result of experiments by exciting
the geophone by a 1Hz pulse wave with 1% duty cycle.
In Fig.10, all the integer harmonics of the main frequency
is clearly visible in the blue plot while we cannot see
them on the orange plot (i.e., the uncompensated plot). The
cascaded integrator and lossy integrator in the conditioning
circuit, increase the gain in the lower frequency range (see
Fig.10).The improved frequency response of the geophone
between 0Hz to 5Hz is depicted by the blue trace in Fig.10.
Practically, it is impossible to eliminate the ambient
vibrations in the lab. Therefore, in the tests, there is always
a background vibration that depicts the noise in the software
analysis.
In another experiment, we focused on the frequencies lower
than 1Hz. We set the shaker to 0.1Hz and evaluated the
results. The frequency responses are shown in Fig.12. In this
setup, the shaker hits the geophone each 10 second, so we
increased the time of sampling by the ADC to 15 minutes.
In this test, we can see the geophone with the compensator
circuit have some peaks for frequencies below 1Hz (blue
plot) while the geophone without the compensator response
 2017 Eleventh International Conference on Sensing Technology (ICST)

Fig. 12. Geophone with compensator response to 0.1Hz square wave

is almost flat. ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The financial support of the NSERC (Natural Sciences
In another evaluation, we considered the ambient vibration and Engineering Research Council of Canada) is gratefully
as a noise. With this assumption, the noise floor of the system acknowledged.
appears to be at −40dB. The noise floor is showed in Fig.10
with a solid line. Therefore, the geophone response for the R EFERENCES
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Therefore, it is compulsory to use active elements with positive
gain for the geophone compensator. However, this method
appears to fail producing a low-pass response. In the second
proposed design, using OAs, we could change the high pass
frequency response of the geophone to a low pass frequency
response. Experimental results confirmed the correctness of
the proposed method of compensation.

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