Loukas, George ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3559-5182 and Timotheou, Stelios (2009) Connecting trapped civilians to a wireless ad hoc network of emergency response robots. In: 11th IEEE International Conference on Communications Systems (ICCS 2008), pp. 599-603, Guangzhou, China, November 2008. IEEE Conference Publications . Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc., Piscataway, NJ, USA, pp. 599-603. ISBN 9781424424238 (Print), 9781424424245 (Electronic) (doi:10.1109/ICCS.2008.4737254)

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Abstract

During a disaster, communications are usually impaired. In order for the rescuers and endangered civilians to communicate, we suggest the use of mobile robots that can act as wireless routers. We describe how they can locate trapped civilians and initiate an ad hoc network connection between them and the rescuers, so that the latter can better assess the situation and plan the rescue operation accordingly. The novel problem that arises is the optimal allocation of these robots so that they connect as many civilians as possible, while maintaining their multi-hop connection with a static wireless sink that represents
the group of rescuers. We present a centralised formulation, which stems from a combination of characteristics typically found in assignment and network flow optimisation problems. We consider both exact locations for the civilians and uncertain locations with a probabilistic representation. We also present a distributed heuristic with which the robots start from the location of the sink and move autonomously trying to connect the civilians while maintaining connectivity. We evaluate our distributed heuristics in a building evacuation simulator and compare them with the centralised approach.

Item Type:	Conference Proceedings
Title of Proceedings:	11th IEEE International Conference on Communications Systems (ICCS 2008), pp. 599-603, Guangzhou, China, November 2008
Additional Information:	[1] This paper was first presented at the 11th (ICCS 2008) held from 19-21 November 2008 in Guangzhou, China. [2] INSPEC Accession Number: 10443009
Uncontrolled Keywords:	emergency response robots, trapped civilians, ad hoc networks, educational institutions, humans, intelligent networks, intelligent robots, intelligent systems, joining processes, mobile ad hoc networks, mobile communication, mobile robots, emergency services, multi-robot systems, radio networks, , wireless ad hoc network
Subjects:	Q Science > Q Science (General)
Pre-2014 Departments:	School of Computing & Mathematical Sciences
Related URLs:	Publisher Organisation
Last Modified:	21 Oct 2020 08:00
URI:	http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/9247

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