Simulation of crisis affecting critical infrastructures and industrial plants

This paper proposes a model for reproducing human behaviors and it is devoted to evaluate the operation performance in case of crisis with special attention to cases involving multiple actors such as fire-fighters, police, ambulances, civil protection and national reserve. The paper present the general scheme and the data structure used to conduct experiments related to cases of flooding and hazardous material spills in industrial and urban areas

SIMULATION AS DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM FOR DISASTER PREVENTION

This paper describes the overall architecture of a simulator developed by Simulation Team and Genova University to address the problem of strategic decision making related to prevention and mitigation of natural disasters risks. The proposed approach combines a Decision Support System for supporting decision makers in strategic planning with interoperable simulation and serious games. The scenario used for the validation in this case focuses with a particular attention on hydrogeology and related risks within urban environments. The authors propose a multilevel and multi resolution simulation able to match the models of the flooding with that one of the population reproducing interest groups as well as single people. Indeed the population is simulated by intelligent agents (IAs) that include physiological, social and psychological parameters reproducing feelings and emotions that allow them to live and move inside the virtual city both in normal conditions as well as during the disasters. In facts in normal conditions works devoted to serve as preventive actions devoted to prevent certain events and or mitigate their impact are carried out; vice versa during the crisis, decisions change addressing the identification of convenient operational planning and/or evacuation site. Each time, an action is undertaken by the decision makers, the IAs react dynamically by changing their feelings and their political consensus, so it becomes possible to plan the actions in an effective way by maintaining the consensus and support of the population

HYPERBARIC PLANT SIMULATION FOR INDUSTRIAL APPLICATIONS

Several industrials sectors require to extend underwater capabilities by adopting alternative and multiple solutions both involving human divers as well as robotic technologies such as ROVs & AUVs. In general the main mandate is to improve performance reducing costs and risks. On the other side, new technologies and advancements are enabling to further develop the potential of the above mentioned solutions; for instance the authors propose a new generation of computer based Hyperbaric Plant Simulators that are pretty promising for improving training & education without rising costs of underwater man based operations. This paper proposes an innovative approach in M&S for the Hyperbaric Life Support Supervisors (LSS) as well as other operators active into diving activities

AGILE SOLUTIONS & DATA ANALITICS FOR LOGISTICS PROVIDERS BASED ON SIMULATION

The current advances are enabling the development of new solutions in data analytics and decision making in many fields; it is quite interesting to analyze the impact of this approach on logistics providers; this paper proposes examples of these challenges in this context as well as an example of a simulation based solution able to interconnect the different information sources and to fuse the data in order to analyze the logistics processes and support decisions. The proposed solution is based on web services and web application that are adopting the MSaaS concept (Modeling & Simulation as a Service) by using stochastic models

DESIGN OF CRUCIAL ELEMENTS FOR INDUSTRIAL PLANTS, OFFSHORE PLATFORMS AND UNDERWATER FACILITIES

The paper proposes some specific models to be used in design of crucial elements for Industrial Plants that previously were not easy to be addressed by simulation due their functional complexity. As examples of these kinds of elements are proposed autonomous systems for fire fighting and/or emergencies for on-shore and off shore plants as well as equipment for underwater operations. The paper proposes use of MS2G Simulation Paradigm (Modeling, interoperable Simulation and Serious Games) as solution in these specific cases to test concepts and capabilities

Introducing Intelligence and Autonomy into Industrial Robots to Address Operations into Dangerous Area

The paper addresses the issue to use new generation robotic systems inside industrial facilities in order to complete operations in dangerous area. The new robotic systems are currently adopting the autonomous approach already in use in military sector; however, in this context the intensity of operations and the necessity to interact with high productivity systems introduce different challenges. Despite the problems, it is evident that this approach could provide very interesting improvements in terms of safety for humans especially in relations to dangerous area. For instance, in confined spaces, Oil & Gas or Hot Metal Industry these new autonomous systems could reduce the number of injures and casualties. In addition, these systems could increase the operation efficiency in this complex frameworks as well as the possibility to carry out inspections systematically; in this sense, this could result in improving the overall reliability, productivity and safety of the whole Industrial Plant. Therefore, it is important to consider that these systems could be used to address also security aspects such as access control, however they could result vulnerable to new threats such as the cyber ones and need to be properly designed in terms of single entities, algorithms, infrastructure and architecture. From this point of view, it is evident that Modeling and Simulation represent the main approach to design properly these new systems. In this paper, the authors present the use of autonomous systems introducing advanced capabilities supported by Artificial Intelligence to deal with complex operations in dangerous industrial frameworks. The proposed examples in oil and gas and hot metal industry confirm the potential of these systems and demonstrate as simulation supports their introduction in terms of engineering, testing, installation, ramp up and training

INNOVATIVE MODELLING OF SOCIAL NETWORKS FOR REPRODUCING COMPLEX SCENARIOS

The development of simulators able to reproduce the social network dynamics and their reactions to events and actions is a promising sector for extending the potential of Modeling in modern scenarios; in these contexts the simulations are usually devoted to support training and decision making. In particular it is interesting to reproduce the web social networks as interoperable simulators with main scenario models. The authors propose an approach for creating models of people and related web social networks to recreate their dynamics during simulation runs, experimentations and exercises. The paper presents an example of using this system to address complex scenarios where human factors are fundamental

POPULATION BEHAVIOR, SOCIAL NETWORKS, TRANSPORTATIONS, INFRASTRUCTURES, INDUSTRIAL AND URBAN SIMULATION

Crisis prevention and management are critical tasks for a public administration. In facts, a complex system such as a city could be difficult to keep under control, even in regular conditions, while respect emergencies it is very hard to finalize good preventive and operational plans. In order to succeed in such tasks, it is necessary to have proper support tools, capable to evaluate alternatives and predict effect of decisions in different conditions. To address such issues, the authors developed PONTUS (Population Behavior, social Networks, Transportations, Infrastructures and Industrial & Urban Simulation) which combines ability to model natural disasters with advanced human behaviors of the population