29 research outputs found

    Path planning for first responders in the presence of moving obstacles

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    Navigation services have gained much importance for all kinds of human activities ranging from tourist navigation to support of rescue teams in disaster management. However, despite the considerable amount of route guidance research that has been performed, many issues that are related to navigation for first responders still need to be addressed. During disasters, emergencies can result in different types of moving obstacles (e.g., fires, plumes, floods), which make some parts of the road network temporarily unavailable. After such incidents occur, responders have to go to different destinations to perform their tasks in the environment affected by the disaster. Therefore they need a path planner that is capable of dealing with such moving obstacles, as well as generating and coordinating their routes quickly and efficiently. During the past decades, more and more hazard simulations, which can modify the models with incorporation of dynamic data from the field, have been developed. These hazard simulations use methods such as data assimilation, stochastic estimation, and adaptive measurement techniques, and are able to generate more reliable results of hazards. This would allow the hazard simulation models to provide valuable information regarding the state of road networks affected by hazards, which supports path planning for first responders among the moving obstacles. The objective of this research is to develop an integrated navigation system for first responders in the presence of moving obstacles. Such system should be able to navigate one or more responders to one or multiple destinations avoiding the moving obstacles, using the predicted information of the moving obstacles generated from by hazard simulations. In this dissertation, the objective we have is expressed as the following research question: How do we safely and efficiently navigate one or more first responders to one or more destinations avoiding moving obstacles? To address the above research questions, this research has been conducted using the following outline: 1). literature review; 2). conceptual design and analysis; 3). implementation of the prototype; and 4). assessment of the prototype and adaption. We investigated previous research related to navigation in disasters, and designed an integrated navigation system architecture, assisting responders in spatial data storage, processing and analysis.Within this architecture, we employ hazard models to provide the predicted information about the obstacles, and select a geo-database to store the data needed for emergency navigation. Throughout the development of the prototype navigation system, we have proposed: a taxonomy of navigation among obstacles, which categorizes navigation cases on basis of type and multiplicity of first responders, destinations, and obstacles; a multi-agent system, which supports information collection from hazard simulations, spatio-temporal data processing and analysis, connection with a geo-database, and route generation in dynamic environments affected by disasters; data models, which structure the information required for finding paths among moving obstacles, capturing both static information, such as the type of the response team, the topology of the road network, and dynamic information, such as changing availabilities of roads during disasters, the uncertainty of the moving obstacles generated from hazard simulations, and the position of the vehicle; path planning algorithms, which generate routes for one or more responders in the presence of moving obstacles. Using the speed of vehicles, departure time, and the predicted information about the state of the road network, etc., three versions (I, II, and III) of Moving Obstacle Avoiding A* (MOAAStar) algorithms are developed: 1). MOAAstar– I/Non-waiting, which supports path planning in the case of forest fires; 2). MOAAstar–II/Waiting, which introduces waiting options to avoid moving obstacles like plumes; 3). MOAAstar–III/Uncertainty, which can handle the uncertainty in predictions of moving obstacles and incorporate the profile of responders into the routing. We have applied the developed prototype navigation system to different navigation cases with moving obstacles. The main conclusions drawn from our applications are summarized as follows: In the proposed taxonomy, we have identified 16 navigation cases that could occur in disaster response and need to be investigated. In addressing these navigation problems, it would be quite useful to employ computer simulations and models, which can make reliable predicted information about responders, the targets, and obstacles, in finding safe routes for the responders. The approach we provide is general and not limited to the cases of plumes and fires. In our data model, the data about the movement of hazards is represented as moving polygons. This allows the data model to be easily adjusted to merge and organize information from models of different types of disasters. For example, the areas that are affected by floods can also be represented as moving polygons. To facilitate the route calculation, not only the data of obstacles but also the information about the state of road networks affected by obstacles need to be structured and stored in the database. In planning routes for responders, the routing algorithms should incorporate the dynamic data of obstacles to be able to avoid the hazards. Besides, other factors, such as the operation time of tasks, the required arrival time, and departure time, also need to be considered to achieve the objectives in a rescue process, e.g., to minimize the delays caused by the moving obstacles. The profile of responders is quite important for generation of feasible routes for a specific disaster situation. The responders may have different protective equipment that allows them to pass through different types of moving obstacles, and thus can have different classification of risk levels to define the state of the road network. By taking into account the profile of the responders, the navigation system can propose customized and safe routes to them, which would facilitate their disaster response processes. On the basis of our findings, we suggest the following topics for future work: As presented Wang and Zlatanova (2013c), there are still a couple of navigation cases that need to be addressed, especially the ones that involve dynamic destinations. More algorithms would be needed to solve these navigation problems. Besides, some extreme cases (e.g., the obstacle covers the target point during the course of an incident) also need to be investigated. Using standard Web services, an Android navigation application, which can provide navigation services in the environment affected by hazards, needs to be developed and tested in both the daily practice and real disasters. In this application, a user interface with various styling options should also be designed for different situations, e.g., waiting and moving, day and night, and urgent and non-urgent. Because the communication infrastructure may not be available or work properly during a disaster response, a decentralized method is needed to allow different users to negotiate with each other and to make local agreements on the distribution of tasks in case there is no support from the central planning system. Another type of multi-agent system would be needed to handle this situation. Introduce variable traveling speed into the re-routing process. The vehicle speed plays an important role in generation of routes avoiding moving obstacle, and can be influenced by many factors, such as the obstacles, the type of vehicles, traffic conditions, and the type of roads. Therefore, it would be needed to investigate how to derive the current and future speed from trajectories of vehicles. Apply the system to aid navigation in various types of natural disasters, using different hazard simulation models (e.g., flood model). More types of agents would be needed and integrated into the system to handle heterogeneous data from these models. Extensions of the data model are also required to meet a wider range of informational needs when multiple disasters occur simultaneously

    Methodology and Algorithms for Pedestrian Network Construction

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    With the advanced capabilities of mobile devices and the success of car navigation systems, interest in pedestrian navigation systems is on the rise. A critical component of any navigation system is a map database which represents a network (e.g., road networks in car navigation systems) and supports key functionality such as map display, geocoding, and routing. Road networks, mainly due to the popularity of car navigation systems, are well defined and publicly available. However, in pedestrian navigation systems, as well as other applications including urban planning and physical activities studies, road networks do not adequately represent the paths that pedestrians usually travel. Currently, there are no techniques to automatically construct pedestrian networks, impeding research and development of applications requiring pedestrian data. This coupled with the increased demand for pedestrian networks is the prime motivation for this dissertation which is focused on development of a methodology and algorithms that can construct pedestrian networks automatically. A methodology, which involves three independent approaches, network buffering (using existing road networks), collaborative mapping (using GPS traces collected by volunteers), and image processing (using high-resolution satellite and laser imageries) was developed. Experiments were conducted to evaluate the pedestrian networks constructed by these approaches with a pedestrian network baseline as a ground truth. The results of the experiments indicate that these three approaches, while differing in complexity and outcome, are viable for automatically constructing pedestrian networks

    “AccessBIM” - A Model of Environmental Characteristics for Vision Impaired Indoor Navigation and Way Finding

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    The complexity of modern indoor environments has made navigation difficult for individuals with vision impairment. Hence, this thesis presents the AccessBIM framework, which is an optimized database that’s facilitates generation of a real-time floor plan with path determination. The AccessBIM framework has the potential to play an integral role in improving the independence and quality of life for people with vision impairment whilst also decreasing the cost to the community related to caretakers

    Architecture and the Built Environment:

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    This publication provides an overview of TU Delft’s most significant research achievements in the field of architecture and the built environment during the years 2010–2012. It is the first presentation of the joint research portfolio of the Faculty of Architecture and OTB Research Institute since their integration into the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment. As such the portfolio holds a strong promise for the future. In a time when the economy seems to be finally picking up and in which such societal issues as energy, climate and ageing are more prominent than ever before, there are plenty of fields for us to explore in the next three years

    Industrial Applications: New Solutions for the New Era

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    This book reprints articles from the Special Issue "Industrial Applications: New Solutions for the New Age" published online in the open-access journal Machines (ISSN 2075-1702). This book consists of twelve published articles. This special edition belongs to the "Mechatronic and Intelligent Machines" section

    Detecting and indexing moving objects for Behavior Analysis by Video and Audio Interpretation

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    2012 - 2013In the last decades we have assisted to a growing need for security in many public environments. According to a study recently conducted by the European Security Observatory, one half of the entire population is worried about the crime and requires the law enforcement to be protected. This consideration has lead the proliferation of cameras and microphones, which represent a suitable solution for their relative low cost of maintenance, the possibility of installing them virtually everywhere and, finally, the capability of analysing more complex events. However, the main limitation of this traditional audiovideo surveillance systems lies in the so called psychological overcharge issue of the human operators responsible for security, that causes a decrease in their capabilities to analyse raw data flows from multiple sources of multimedia information; indeed, as stated by a study conducted by Security Solutions magazine, after 12 minutes of continuous video monitoring, a guard will often miss up to 45% of screen activity. After 22 minutes of video, up to 95% is overlooked. For the above mentioned reasons, it would be really useful to have available an intelligent surveillance system, able to provide images and video with a semantic interpretation, for trying to bridge the gap between their low-level representation in terms of pixels, and the high-level, natural language description that a human would give about them. On the other hand, this kind of systems, able to automatically understand the events occurring in a scene, would be really useful in other application fields, mainly oriented to marketing purposes. Especially in the last years, a lot of business intelligent applications have been installed for assisting decision makers and for giving an organization’s employees, partners and suppliers easy access to the information they need to effectively do their jobs... [edited by author]XII n.s

    Évaluation et la représentation spatiotemporelle de l'accessibilité des réseaux piétonniers pour le déplacement des personnes à mobilité réduite

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    La mobilité des personnes à mobilité réduite (PMR) joue un rôle important dans leur inclusion sociale. Les PMR ont besoin de se déplacer de manière autonome pour effectuer leurs routines quotidiennes comme aller à l'école, au travail, au centre de remise en forme ou faire du magasinage. Cependant, celles-ci ne sont pas entièrement exécutées en raison de la conception non-adaptée des villes pour ces personnes. En effet, la mobilité est une habitude de vie humaine qui est le résultat d'interactions entre les facteurs humains (par exemple, les capacités) et les facteurs environnementaux. Au cours des dernières années, la mise au point de technologies d’aide technique s'est développée progressivement pour permettre aux PMR d’améliorer leur qualité de vie. En particulier, ces technologies offrent une variété de caractéristiques qui permettent à ces personnes de surmonter divers obstacles qui réduisent leur mobilité et contribuent à leur exclusion sociale. Cependant, malgré la disponibilité des technologies d’aide à la navigation et à la mobilité, leur potentiel est mal exploité pour les PMR. En effet, ces technologies ne considèrent pas les interactions « humain-environnement » adéquatement pour ces utilisateurs. L'objectif général de cette thèse est d'utiliser les potentiels des méthodes et des technologies de science de l'information géographique (SIG) afin d’aider à surmonter les problèmes de mobilité des PMR en créant un cadre d'évaluation de l'accessibilité et en développant une approche personnalisée de routage qui prend en compte les profils de ces personnes. Pour atteindre ce but, quatre objectifs spécifiques sont considérés: 1) développer une ontologie de mobilité pour les PMR qui considère les facteurs personnels et environnementaux, 2) proposer une méthode de l’évaluation de l'accessibilité du réseau piétonnier pour la mobilité des PMR en considérant spécifiquement les interactions entre les facteurs humains (la confiance) et les facteurs environnementaux, 3) étudier le rôle des facteurs sociaux dans l'accessibilité des zones urbaines et, finalement, 4) affiner les algorithmes existants pour calculer les itinéraires accessibles personnalisés pour les PMR en considérant leurs profils. En effet, tout d'abord pour développer une ontologie pour la mobilité des PMR, la dimension sociale de l'environnement ainsi que la dimension physique sont intégrées et une nouvelle approche basée sur une perspective « nature-développement » est présentée. Ensuite, une approche fondée sur la confiance des PMR est développée pour l'évaluation de l'accessibilité du réseau piétonnier, compte tenu de l'interaction entre les facteurs personnels et les facteurs environnementaux. De plus, dans une perspective de considération des facteurs sociaux, le rôle des actions politiques sur l'accessibilité du réseau piétonnier est étudié et l'influence de trois politiques potentielles est analysée. Enfin, une nouvelle approche pour calculer des itinéraires personnalisés pour les PMR en tenant compte de leurs perceptions, de leurs préférences et de leurs confidences est proposée. Les approches proposées sont développées et évaluées dans le quartier Saint-Roch à Québec, et ce, en utilisant une application d'assistance mobile et multimodale développée dans le cadre du projet MobiliSIG.Mobility of people with motor disabilities (PWMD) plays a significant role in their social inclusion. PWMD need to move around autonomously to perform their daily routines such as going to school, work, shopping, and going to fitness centers. However, mostly these needs are not accomplished because of either limitations concerning their capabilities or inadequate city design. Indeed, mobility is a human life habit, which is the result of interactions between people and their surrounded environments. In recent years, assistive technologies have been increasingly developed to enable PWMD to live independently and participate fully in all aspects of life. In particular, these technologies provide a variety of features that allow these individuals to overcome diverse obstacles that reduce their mobility and contribute to their social exclusion. However, despite increasing availability of assistive technologies for navigation and mobility, their potential is poorly exploited for PWMD. Indeed, these technologies do not fully consider the human-environment interactions. The overall goal of this dissertation is to benefit from the potentials of methods and technologies of the Geographic Information Sciences (GIS) in order to overcome the mobility issues of PWMD by creating an accessibility-assessing framework and ultimately by developing a personalized routing approach, which better considers the humanenvironment interaction. To achieve this goal, four specific objectives were followed: 1) develop a mobility ontology for PWMD that considers personal factors as well as environmental factors, 2) propose a method to evaluate the accessibility of the pedestrian network for the mobility of PWMD considering the interactions between human factors (confidence) and the environmental factors, 3) study of the role of social factors in the accessibility of urban areas, and finally, 4) refine the existing algorithms to calculate accessible routes for PWMD considering their profile. First, to develop an adapted ontology for mobility of the PWMD, the social dimension of the environment with the physical dimension were integrated and a new approach based on a “Nature-Development” perspective was presented. This perspective led to the development of useful ontologies, especially for defining the relationships between the social and physical parts of the environment. Next, a confidence-based approach was developed for evaluation of the accessibility of pedestrian network considering the interaction between personal factors and environmental factors for the mobility of PWMD. In addition, the role of policy actions on the accessibility of the pedestrian network was investigated and the influence of three potential policies was analyzed. Finally, a novel approach to compute personalized routes for PWMD considering their perception, preferences, and confidences was proposed. The approaches proposed were implemented in the Saint-Roch area of Quebec City and visualized within the multimodal mobile assistive technology (MobiliSIG) applicatio

    Proceedings of the CIB World Building Congress 2016: Volume IV - Understanding Impacts and Functioning of Different Solutions

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