Developing a Robust Emergency Information System for Natural Disasters

Abstract

A lot of Emergency Information Systems have been developed to inform people about impending emergencies. Most of them are part of an integrated system, collaborating with a respective warning system. No matter which technology is employed in the development process, an Emergency Information System aspires to deliver emergency content accurately and rapidly. Most of Emergency Information Systems transmit the emergency content in a predetermined geographical area. In parallel, a typical DRM Emergency Information System doesn’t vouch for transmission accuracy in the case of a possible communication loss or a power outage. This paper presents a DRM-based Emergency Information System that works well in remote areas with rough geographical terrain, offsetting a possible communication loss or a possible power outage. An efficient broadcast selection algorithm has been developed to answer this purpose. The paper also indicates the maximum coverage of the underlying system, in a mountainous area (Vigla), taking advantage of a standard methodology called " LEGBAC”. Specific software was used to come up with the wide area coverage map. The results proved that our system achieved maximum coverage in any antenna calibration (99% approximately) and the value of the respective signal strength was not significantly altered by the increase in the number of kilometers away from the transmission center, indicating the robustness of our system and the competency of the broadcast selection algorithm.