Demonstrating an evacuation algorithm with mobile devices using an e-scavenger hunt game

ABSTRACT

Casualties in emergency situations are often caused by panic and in cases where building evacuation is required, they are often caused by a disorganized evacuation. This has motivated us to design a two-layer indoor evacuation system that takes advantage of two technologies all people carry on them, namely, cellular phones with cameras and RFID cards. The proposed system integrates QR-Code and RFID-based positioning with a routing system with mounted terminals and displays for guiding people with RFID tags out of a building. People with mobile devices with cameras use an application that resolves QR-Codes into web addresses that point to dynamically generated evacuation instructions. As a proof-of-concept, we have implemented this system with commercially available tools and components as an e-scavenger hunt game which uses SCAVY, our novel evacuation (routing) algorithm, to guide players around a building visiting different locations in a load balancing manner. In this demo, we are planning to deploy this e-scavenger game and the participants would be able to follow the progress of the game (evacuation) through a system monitor dashboard.

REFERENCES

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.2 DATABASE MANAGEMENT
      H.2.4 Systems

Additional Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.2 DATABASE MANAGEMENT
      H.2.2 Physical Design

General Terms:
Algorithms, Design, Management

Keywords:
QR-code, RFID, data management, evacuation, mobile computing, navigation, nearest neighbor, vertex weight