Your browser does not support JavaScript!
http://iet.metastore.ingenta.com
1887

access icon openaccess Bluetooth portal-based system to measure the performance of building emergency evacuation plans and drills

This is an open access article published by the IET under the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)
Received 15/07/2017, Accepted 26/01/2018, Revised 22/01/2018, Published 30/01/2018

The safety of a building can be explicated in two different ways: the ability to withstand a critical event that affects the structure and the ability to safely allow people to leave the building. This article present a new methodology that can allow engineers to detect people trajectories in evacuation drills and provide a measure of effectiveness for buildings evacuation plans. In the proposed system Bluetooth beacon passive emitters are positioned as reference points and the sensing device is made up by the smartphones of people evacuating a building. The proposed methodology is thus based on using beacons that are capable of emitting a radio signal. The radio signal can be picked up by the sensors present in smartphones. The signal is then processed by a dedicated application on the device. Information is transferred to a computer and elaborated obtaining a measure of people positions. In the system people movements in emergency evacuation drills can practically be traced with very simple and affordable equipment. Once all data from mobile phones are gathered the system is able to reconstruct the trajectories of smartphones, in indoor (or outdoor) environments, and therefore to assess the overall performance of the building evacuation plan.

Inspec keywords: signal processing; emergency management; Bluetooth

Other keywords: Bluetooth receivers; building safety; building emergency evacuation plans; building emergency evacuation drills; people trajectory detection; Bluetooth portal-based system; office building; radio signal; Bluetooth beacons

Subjects: Emergency management; Computer networks and techniques; Signal processing and detection; Digital signal processing; Radio links and equipment; Computer communications

References

    1. 1)
      • 17. Nelson, H.E.B., Mowrer, F.W.: ‘Emergency movement’, in Dinenno, P.J., Walton, W.D. (Eds.): ‘SFPE handbook of fire protection engineering’ (National Fire Protection Association, Quincy, 2002), p. 367.
    2. 2)
      • 6. Pauls, J.: ‘Calculating evacuation times for tall buildings’, Fire Safety J., 1987, 12, pp. 213–236.
    3. 3)
      • 33. Pourhomayoun, M., Jin, Z., Fowler, M.: ‘Spatial sparsity based indoor localization in wireless sensor network for assistive healthcare’. Annual Int. Conf. of the IEEE Proc. of Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 2012, pp. 3696–3699.
    4. 4)
      • 15. Ben, X., Huang, X., Zhuang, Z., et al: ‘Agent-based approach for crowded pedestrian evacuation simulation’, IET Intell. Transp. Syst., 2013, 7, (1), pp. 55–67.
    5. 5)
      • 5. Nelson, H.E., MacLennan, H.A.: ‘Emergency movement’, in Hurley, M.J., Gottuk, D.T., Hall, J.R.Jr., et al (Eds.): ‘SFPE handbook of fire protection engineering’ (SFPE, Quincy, Massachusetts, 1995), pp. 3-286–3-295.
    6. 6)
      • 22. Xu, M., Hijazi, I., Mebarki, A., et al: ‘Indoor guided evacuation: TIN for graph generation and crowd evacuation’, Geomatics Nat. Hazards Risk, 2016, 7, (1), pp. 47–56.
    7. 7)
      • 1. NFPA: ‘NFPA 101 life safety code’ (National Fire Protection Association, Quincy, USA, 2012).
    8. 8)
      • 12. Gwynne, S., Galea, E.R., Owen, M., et al: ‘A review of the methodologies used in the computer simulation of evacuation from the built environment’, Build. Environ., 1999, 34, (6), pp. 741–749, ISSN: 0360-1323.
    9. 9)
      • 23. Maysoon, F.A., Lamiaa, F.I.: ‘Using rule base system in mobile platform to build alert system for evacuation and guidance’, Int. J. Adv. Comput. Sci. Appl., 2016, 7, (4), pp. 68–79.
    10. 10)
      • 29. Astarita, V., Giofrè, V.P., Guido, G., et al: ‘The use of adaptive traffic signal systems based on floating car data’, Wirel. Commun. Mob. Comput., 2017, 2017, pp. 1–13.
    11. 11)
      • 36. Subhan, F., Hasbullah, H., Rozyyev, A., et al: ‘Indoor positioning in Bluetooth networks using fingerprinting and lateration approach’. Proc. Int. Conf. Information Science and Applications (ICISA), 2011, pp. 1–9.
    12. 12)
      • 9. Kisko, T.M., Francis, R.L.: ‘EVACNET+: a computer program to determine optimal building evacuation plans’, Fire Safety J., 1985, 9, (2), pp. 211–220.
    13. 13)
      • 34. Burzacca, P., Mircoli, M., Mitolo, S., et al: ‘‘Ibeacon’ technology that will make possible internet of things’. IET Conf. Proc., 2014.
    14. 14)
      • 19. Weidmann, U., Kirsch, U., Schreckenberg, M.: ‘Pedestrian and evacuation dynamics’ (Springer, Berlin, 2014).
    15. 15)
      • 30. Pahlavan, K., Krishnamurthy, P., Beneat, J.: ‘Wideband radio propagation modeling for indoor geolocation applications’, IEEE Commun. Mag., 1998, 36, pp. 60–65.
    16. 16)
      • 4. Predtechenskii, V.M., Milinskii, A.I.: ‘Planning for foot traffic flow in buildings NBS’ (Amerind Publishing Company Inc., New Delhi, 1978).
    17. 17)
      • 26. Allurwar, N., Nawale, B., Patel, S.: ‘Beacon for proximity target marketing’, Int. J. Eng. Comput. Sci., 2016, 5, (5), pp. 16359–16364.
    18. 18)
      • 14. Dandan, Z., Xiaoqing, Y., Yifan, Z., et al: ‘Pedestrians evacuation simulation based on genetic algorithm’. IET Conf. Proc., 2015, p. 5.
    19. 19)
      • 21. Hurney, P., Waldron, P., Morgan, F., et al: ‘Review of pedestrian detection techniques in automotive far-infrared video’, IET Intell. Transp. Syst., 2015, 9, (8), pp. 824–832.
    20. 20)
      • 8. Pauls, J.L.: ‘Building evacuation: research methods and case studies’, in Canter, J. (Ed.): ‘Fires and human behaviored’ (John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1980), pp. 227–249.
    21. 21)
      • 2. Galbreath, M.: ‘Time of evacuation by stairs in high buildings’ (National research council of Canada – division of building research, Ottawa, FR, 1969), Note 8.
    22. 22)
      • 7. Pauls, J.L.: ‘Management and movement of building occupants in emergencies’. DBR Paper No. 788, NRCC 16845, National Research Council Canada, Division of Building Research, Ottawa, 1978.
    23. 23)
      • 3. Fruin, J.J.: ‘Pedestrian planning and design’ (Metropolitan Association of Urban Designers and Environmental Planners, New York, 1971).
    24. 24)
      • 35. Chawathe, S.S.: ‘Beacon placement for indoor localization using Bluetooth’. Proc. Int. IEEE Conf. Intelligent Transportation Systems, 2008, pp. 980–985.
    25. 25)
      • 24. Jang, M., Jeong, W., Lim, K.: ‘A disaster evacuation system using smart devices for indoor crisis management in BLE environments’, IEMEK J. Embedded Syst. Appl., 2015, 10, (5), pp. 281–296.
    26. 26)
      • 20. Ma, G., Müller, D., Park, S.-B., et al: ‘Pedestrian detection using a single-monochrome camera’, IET Intell. Transp. Syst., 2009, 3, (1), pp. 42–56.
    27. 27)
      • 28. Palumbo, F., Barsocchi, P., Chessa, S., et al: ‘A stigmergic approach to indoor localization using Bluetooth low energy beacons’. Proc. 12th IEEE Int. Conf. Advanced Video and Signal Based Surveillance (AVSS ‘15), Karlsruhe, Germany, 2015, pp. 1–6.
    28. 28)
      • 27. Barsocchi, P., Cimino, M.G.C.A., Ferro, E., et al: ‘Monitoring elderly behavior via indoor position-based stigmergy’, Pervasive Mob. Comput., 2015, 23, pp. 26–42.
    29. 29)
      • 10. Adamo, V., Astarita, V., Polidoro, R.: ‘Simule – simulazione degli scenari di emergenza sulle reti di trasporto’. ISCS (Italian Society for Computer Simulation), Conferenza Annuale, Roma, 1996.
    30. 30)
      • 32. Li, X., Pahlavan, K.: ‘Super-resolution TOA estimation with diversity for indoor geolocation’, IEEE Trans. Wirel. Commun., 2004, 3, pp. 224–234.
    31. 31)
      • 16. Paris, S., Pettre, J., Donikian, S.: ‘Pedestrian reactive navigation for crowd simulation: a predictive approach’, Comput. Graph. Forum, 2007, 26, (3), pp. 665–674.
    32. 32)
      • 13. Duives, D.C., Daamen, W., Hoogendoorn, S.P.: ‘State-of-the-art crowd motion simulation models’, Transp. Res. C, Emerg. Technol., 2013, 37, pp. 193–209.
    33. 33)
      • 18. Bellomo, N., Piccoli, B, Tosin, A.: ‘Modeling crowd dynamics from a complex system viewpoint’, Math. Models Meth. Appl. Sci., 2012, 22, (2), pp. 1–29, Paper n° 1230004.
    34. 34)
      • 25. Lau, E.E.L., Chung, W.Y.: ‘Enhanced RSSI-based real-time user location tracking system for indoor and outdoor environments’. Convergence Information Technology, Gyeongju, South Korea, November 2007, pp. 1213–1218.
    35. 35)
      • 31. Pahlavan, K., Li, X., Makela, J.: ‘Indoor geolocation science and technology’, IEEE Commun. Mag., 2002, 40, pp. 112–118.
    36. 36)
      • 11. Owen, M., Galea, E.R., Lawrence, P.J.: ‘The EXODUS evacuation model applied to building evacuation scenarios’, J. Fire Prot. Eng., 1996, 8, (2), pp. 65–84.
http://iet.metastore.ingenta.com/content/journals/10.1049/iet-its.2017.0219
Loading

Related content

content/journals/10.1049/iet-its.2017.0219
pub_keyword,iet_inspecKeyword,pub_concept
6
6
Loading
Print this page
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address