Directional Navigation Improves Opportunistic Communication for Emergencies

Sensors

Andras. Kokuti¹ 

[1] Intelligent Systems and Networks Group, Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Imperial College, London SW72AZ, UK; E-Mail

关键词: emergency navigation;    opportunistic communications;    building evacuation;    self organization;   

DOI  :  10.3390/s140815387

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

We present a novel direction based shortest path search algorithm to guide evacuees during an emergency. It uses opportunistic communications (oppcomms) with low-cost wearable mobile nodes that can exchange packets at close range of a few to some tens of meters without help of an infrastructure. The algorithm seeks the shortest path to exits which are safest with regard to a hazard, and is integrated into an autonomous Emergency Support System (ESS) to guide evacuees in a built environment. The algorithm proposed that ESSs are evaluated with the DBES (Distributed Building Evacuation Simulator) by simulating a shopping centre where fire is spreading. The results show that the directional path finding algorithm can offer significant improvements for the evacuees.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2014 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.