Distributed Building Evacuation Simulator for Smart Emergency Management

Abstract

We describe a distributed simulation tool which addresses the unique needs for the simulation of emergency response scenarios. The simulation tool adopts the multi-agent paradigm, so as to facilitate the modelling of diverse and autonomous agents, and it provides mechanisms for the interaction of the entities that are being simulated. It operates in a distributed fashion to reduce the simulation time required for such large-scale systems. The simulation tool represents the individuals that need to be evacuated, the resources that contribute to the evacuation including human rescuers, and other active resources and entities which may include robots and which can autonomously interact with the environment and with each other and take individual or collaborative decisions. We illustrate the tool with an application and compare the results for both centralized and distributed execution. Our results also show the significant reduction in execution time that is achieved for different degrees of distribution of the simulator on multiple servers.

Physical indicators of cyber attacks against a rescue robot

“…Cyber-physical systems have been the subject of numerous emergency response applications. The authors in [3] present a smart navigation system for disaster management while a distributed emergency management simulator which can operate in conjunction with a Wireless Sensor Network for real-time hazard monitoring is presented in [4]. An extended survey of cyber-physical systems geared towards emergency management is presented in [5], where the authors elaborate on current research related to sensor-assisted evacuation and asynchronous control of large scale emergency response systems.…”

Future Research on Cyber-Physical Emergency Management Systems

“…References [13][14][15][16][17][18]20,21,39,[42][43][44] rely on location information regarding the sensors to compute evacuation paths [51], while the deployment of sensors in work spaces and buildings in [12][13][14][15][16][17]20,21,25,39,42] enables the movement of evacuees and first responders. Except for [12][13][14][15][16]20,21], most approaches require maps either for computing or navigation purposes.…”

“…Instead of physically sensed input, as in other work, some simulation studies [40,41] use virtual hazards to simulate emergencies. Also, the dynamic spread and shrinking of hazards is considered in [15,[19][20][21]23,25,39,42].…”

“…Moreover, dynamic prediction and forecast of environmental changes should be conducted to avoid unnecessary casualties [20,21,[39][40][41][42][43][44].…”

Occupancy Detection for Building Emergency Management Using BLE Beacons

“…For example, having a mechanism to estimate the occupancy of different areas within a building can help emergency personnel produce a more optimal plan of action. In the literature on emergency management supporting technologies, it is often assumed that the emergency personnel or unmanned technical systems involved are aware of the locations where there are individuals requiring assistance/rescue [5,6,12], but this assumption can be highly inaccurate in many real-life situations. For example, during the 2015 terrorist attack in a Tunis museum, two tourists spent the night hiding in the museum only to be found the next day.…”