Evacuee routing algorithms in emergency typically adopt one single criterion
to compute desired paths and ignore the specific requirements of users caused
by different physical strength, mobility and level of resistance to hazard. In
this paper, we present a quality of service (QoS) driven multi-path routing
algorithm to provide diverse paths for different categories of evacuees. This
algorithm borrows the concept of Cognitive Packet Network (CPN), which is a
flexible protocol that can rapidly solve optimal solution for any user-defined
goal function. Spatial information regarding the location and spread of hazards
is taken into consideration to avoid that evacuees be directed towards
hazardous zones. Furthermore, since previous emergency navigation algorithms
are normally insensitive to sudden changes in the hazard environment such as
abrupt congestion or injury of civilians, evacuees are dynamically assigned to
several groups to adapt their course of action with regard to their on-going
physical condition and environments. Simulation results indicate that the
proposed algorithm which is sensitive to the needs of evacuees produces better
results than the use of a single metric. Simulations also show that the use of
dynamic grouping to adjust the evacuees' category and routing algorithms with
regard for their on-going health conditions and mobility, can achieve higher
survival rates.Comment: Contains 6 pages, 5 pages. Accepted by PerNEM' 201
