38,337 research outputs found
Physics-Based Swarm Intelligence for Disaster Relief Communications
This study explores how a swarm of aerial mobile vehicles can provide network
connectivity and meet the stringent requirements of public protection and
disaster relief operations. In this context, we design a physics-based
controlled mobility strategy, which we name the extended Virtual Force Protocol
(VFPe), allowing self-propelled nodes, and in particular here unmanned aerial
vehicles, to fly autonomously and cooperatively. In this way, ground devices
scattered on the operation site may establish communications through the
wireless multi-hop communication routes formed by the network of aerial nodes.
We further investigate through simulations the behavior of the VFPe protocol,
notably focusing on the way node location information is disseminated into the
network as well as on the impact of the number of exploration nodes on the
overall network performance.Comment: in International Conference on Ad Hoc Networks and Wireless, Jul
2016, Lille, Franc
Routing in Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks using Social Tie Strengths and Mobility Plans
We consider the problem of routing in a mobile ad-hoc network (MANET) for
which the planned mobilities of the nodes are partially known a priori and the
nodes travel in groups. This situation arises commonly in military and
emergency response scenarios. Optimal routes are computed using the most
reliable path principle in which the negative logarithm of a node pair's
adjacency probability is used as a link weight metric. This probability is
estimated using the mobility plan as well as dynamic information captured by
table exchanges, including a measure of the social tie strength between nodes.
The latter information is useful when nodes deviate from their plans or when
the plans are inaccurate. We compare the proposed routing algorithm with the
commonly-used optimized link state routing (OLSR) protocol in ns-3 simulations.
As the OLSR protocol does not exploit the mobility plans, it relies on link
state determination which suffers with increasing mobility. Our simulations
show considerably better throughput performance with the proposed approach as
compared with OLSR at the expense of increased overhead. However, in the
high-throughput regime, the proposed approach outperforms OLSR in terms of both
throughput and overhead
Interorganizational Information Exchange and Efficiency: Organizational Performance in Emergency Environments
Achieving efficiency in coordinated action in rapidly changing environments has challenged both researchers and practitioners. Emergency events require both rapid response and effective coordination among participating organizations. We created a simulated operations environment using agent-based modeling to test the efficiency of six different organizational designs that varied the exercise of authority, degree of uncertainty, and access to information. Efficiency is measured in terms of response time, identifying time as the most valuable resource in emergency response. Our findings show that, contrary to dominant organizational patterns of hierarchical authority that limit communication among members via strict reporting rules, any communication among members increases the efficiency of organizations operating in uncertain environments. We further found that a smaller component of highly interconnected, self adapting agents emerges over time to support the organization\'s adaptation in changing conditions. In uncertain environments, heterogeneous agents prove more efficient in sharing information that guides coordination than homogeneous agents.Agent-Based Simulation, Emergency Management, Network Evolution, Performance
Training of Crisis Mappers and Map Production from Multi-sensor Data: Vernazza Case Study (Cinque Terre National Park, Italy)
This aim of paper is to presents the development of a multidisciplinary project carried out by the cooperation between Politecnico di Torino and ITHACA (Information Technology for Humanitarian Assistance, Cooperation and Action). The goal of the project was the training in geospatial data acquiring and processing for students attending Architecture and Engineering Courses, in order to start up a team of "volunteer mappers". Indeed, the project is aimed to document the environmental and built heritage subject to disaster; the purpose is to improve the capabilities of the actors involved in the activities connected in geospatial data collection, integration and sharing. The proposed area for testing the training activities is the Cinque Terre National Park, registered in the World Heritage List since 1997. The area was affected by flood on the 25th of October 2011. According to other international experiences, the group is expected to be active after emergencies in order to upgrade maps, using data acquired by typical geomatic methods and techniques such as terrestrial and aerial Lidar, close-range and aerial photogrammetry, topographic and GNSS instruments etc.; or by non conventional systems and instruments such us UAV, mobile mapping etc. The ultimate goal is to implement a WebGIS platform to share all the data collected with local authorities and the Civil Protectio
Large emergency-response exercises: qualitative characteristics - a survey
Exercises, drills, or simulations are widely used, by governments, agencies and commercial organizations, to simulate serious incidents and train staff how to respond to them. International cooperation has led to increasingly large-scale exercises, often involving hundreds or even thousands of participants in many locations. The difference between ‘large’ and ‘small’ exercises is more than one of size: (a) Large exercises are more ‘experiential’ and more likely to undermine any model of reality that single organizations may create; (b) they create a ‘play space’ in which organizations and individuals act out their own needs and identifications, and a ritual with strong social implications; (c) group-analytic psychotherapy suggests that the emotions aroused in a large group may be stronger and more difficult to control. Feelings are an unacknowledged major factor in the success or failure of exercises; (d) successful large exercises help improve the nature of trust between individuals and the organizations they represent, changing it from a situational trust to a personal trust; (e) it is more difficult to learn from large exercises or to apply the lessons identified; (f) however, large exercises can help develop organizations and individuals. Exercises (and simulation in general) need to be approached from a broader multidisciplinary direction if their full potential is to be realized
Virtual Communication Stack: Towards Building Integrated Simulator of Mobile Ad Hoc Network-based Infrastructure for Disaster Response Scenarios
Responses to disastrous events are a challenging problem, because of possible
damages on communication infrastructures. For instance, after a natural
disaster, infrastructures might be entirely destroyed. Different network
paradigms were proposed in the literature in order to deploy adhoc network, and
allow dealing with the lack of communications. However, all these solutions
focus only on the performance of the network itself, without taking into
account the specificities and heterogeneity of the components which use it.
This comes from the difficulty to integrate models with different levels of
abstraction. Consequently, verification and validation of adhoc protocols
cannot guarantee that the different systems will work as expected in
operational conditions. However, the DEVS theory provides some mechanisms to
allow integration of models with different natures. This paper proposes an
integrated simulation architecture based on DEVS which improves the accuracy of
ad hoc infrastructure simulators in the case of disaster response scenarios.Comment: Preprint. Unpublishe
3D and 4D Simulations for Landscape Reconstruction and Damage Scenarios. GIS Pilot Applications
The project 3D and 4D Simulations for Landscape Reconstruction and Damage Scenarios: GIS Pilot
Applications has been devised with the intention to deal with the demand for research, innovation and
applicative methodology on the part of the international programme, requiring concrete results to
increase the capacity to know, anticipate and respond to a natural disaster. This project therefore sets
out to develop an experimental methodology, a wide geodatabase, a connected performant GIS
platform and multifunctional scenarios able to profitably relate the added values deriving from
different geotechnologies, aimed at a series of crucial steps regarding landscape reconstruction, event
simulation, damage evaluation, emergency management, multi-temporal analysis. The Vesuvius area
has been chosen for the pilot application owing to such an impressive number of people and buildings subject to volcanic risk that one could speak in terms of a possible national disaster. The steps of the
project move around the following core elements: creation of models that reproduce the territorial and
anthropic structure of the past periods, and reconstruction of the urbanized area, with temporal
distinctions; three-dimensional representation of the Vesuvius area in terms of infrastructuralresidential
aspects; GIS simulation of the expected event; first examination of the healthcareepidemiological
consequences; educational proposals. This paper represents a proactive contribution
which describes the aims of the project, the steps which constitute a set of specific procedures for the
methodology which we are experimenting, and some thoughts regarding the geodatabase useful to
“package” illustrative elaborations. Since the involvement of the population and adequate hazard
preparedness are very important aspects, some educational and communicational considerations are
presented in connection with the use of geotechnologies to promote the knowledge of risk
ANGELAH: A Framework for Assisting Elders At Home
The ever growing percentage of elderly people within modern societies poses welfare systems under relevant stress. In fact, partial and progressive loss of motor, sensorial, and/or cognitive skills renders elders unable to live autonomously, eventually leading to their hospitalization. This results in both relevant emotional and economic costs. Ubiquitous computing technologies can offer interesting opportunities for in-house safety and autonomy. However, existing systems partially address in-house safety requirements and typically focus on only elder monitoring and emergency detection. The paper presents ANGELAH, a middleware-level solution integrating both ”elder monitoring and emergency detection” solutions and networking solutions. ANGELAH has two main features: i) it enables efficient integration between a variety of sensors and actuators deployed at home for emergency detection and ii) provides a solid framework for creating and managing rescue teams composed of individuals willing to promptly assist elders in case of emergency situations. A prototype of ANGELAH, designed for a case study for helping elders with vision impairments, is developed and interesting results are obtained from both computer simulations and a real-network testbed
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