Disaster Resilient Rescue of Coastal Community on Cyclone Warning

Bangladesh is in the front line of battlefield of disasters due to geographical location and global warming faced over 200 natural disasters in past 40 years and most of the disasters were cyclones. People need to be evacuated and rescued before a cyclone landfall. In current practice, multipurpose cyclone shelter (MPCS) provides short-term safety for the disaster victims in Bangladesh, where people are rescued after disasters which cannot ensure survival of lives. This study aims to develop a method for efficient evacuation and rescue to reduce death tolls in the events of disasters. This study used Wi-Fi scanner and smartphones to detect people. An inbuilt index that includes name, address, mobile number, photo, service set identifier (SSID), and media access control (MAC) of smartphone was developed for 90 registered participants. In this controlled experiment, few new participants turned on hotspot in every five minutes. A new index of people with MAC/SSID was developed in MPCS simulating an emergency. Missing people were detected by comparing inbuilt index and new index, and ordered them self-evacuation. This method captured 100% evacuees. Most importantly, the proposed method will reduce death tools because the people are rescued earlier to a disaster hits a specific area

Small scale implementation of a robotic urban search and rescue network

Thesis (M.S.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2012With the advancement of robotics technologies, it is now possible to use robots for high risk jobs that have historically been accomplished by humans. One such example is the use of robots for Urban Search and Rescue (USR): finding chemical spills, fires, or human survivors in disaster areas. With the ability to include inexpensive wireless transceivers, it is possible to network numerous robots as part of a swarm that can explore an area much more expeditiously than a single robot can. With the inclusion of wireless capabilities comes the necessity to create a protocol for the communication between robots. Also necessary is the creation of an exploration protocol that allows the network of robots to explore such a building or search area in as little time as possible yet as accurately as possible. This thesis covers the development of such a network of robots, starting with the hardware/software co-design, the individual robots' control mechanisms, and their mapping and communications protocols