Abstract
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.
Highlights
Emergency evacuation is an essential component of built environments such as sports arenas, concert halls, buildings in general, and even ships
Since many catastrophic events can impair or destroy the fixed sensor nodes, this paper considers the use of a simpler technology based on commonly available wearable opportunistic network nodes that can be implemented with smart phones or personal digital assistants, as a supplementary system or an alternative for helping evacuees
The simulations are performed with four different civilian densities (400, 600, 800 and 1000 civilians) because the number of customers in a shopping centre may vary in a wide range
Summary
Emergency evacuation is an essential component of built environments such as sports arenas, concert halls, buildings in general, and even ships. There has been many work related to evacuation techniques that use distributed computation and wireless sensor networks (WSN) [3]. WSNs can be used both for sensing the hazards, identifying evacuees and communicating with them, and possibly for finding safe paths, such networks require a minimal. Sensors 2014, 14 fixed infrastructure which remains viable during an emergency. Since many catastrophic events can impair or destroy the fixed sensor nodes, this paper considers the use of a simpler technology based on commonly available wearable opportunistic network nodes that can be implemented with smart phones or personal digital assistants, as a supplementary system or an alternative for helping evacuees. The first group is comprised of solutions that rely on the existence of a sensor network for emergency navigation.
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