Locating emergency responders in disaster area using wireless sensor network

Abstract

A worldwide increase in number of natural hazards is causing heavy loss of human life and infrastructure. An effective disaster management system is required to reduce the impacts of natural hazards on common life. The first hand responders play a major role in effective and efficient disaster management. Locating and tracking the first hand responders are necessary to organize and manage real-time delivery of medical and food supplies for disaster hit people. This requires effective communication and information processing between various groups of emergency responders in harsh and remote environments. Locating, tracking, and communicating with emergency responders can be achieved by devising a body sensor system for the emergency responders. In phase 1 of this research work, we have developed an enhanced trilateration algorithm for static and mobile wireless sensor nodes. This work discusses an algorithm and its implementation for localization of emergency responders in a disaster hit area. The indoor and outdoor experimentation results are also presented. © 2012 ICST Institute for Computer Science, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering.