Skip to main content
Home
Distributed Systems Group
Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya BARCELONATECH
User account menu
  • login

A Context-Aware Model to Provide Positioning in Disaster Relief Scenarios

Author
Daniel Moreno
Sergio Ochoa
Roc Meseguer
Abstract

The effectiveness of the work performed during disaster relief efforts is highly dependent on the coordination of activities conducted by the first responders deployed in the affected area. Such coordination, in turn, depends on an appropriate management of geo-referenced information. Therefore, enabling first responders to count on positioning capabilities during these activities is vital to increase the effectiveness of the response process. The positioning methods used in this scenario must assume a lack of infrastructure-based communication and electrical energy, which usually characterizes affected areas. Although positioning systems such as the Global Positioning System (GPS) have been shown to be useful, we cannot assume that all devices deployed in the area (or most of them) will have positioning capabilities by themselves. Typically, many first responders carry devices that are not capable of performing positioning on their own, but that require such a service. In order to help increase the positioning capability of first responders in disaster-affected areas, this paper presents a context-aware positioning model that allows mobile devices to estimate their position based on information gathered from their surroundings. The performance of the proposed model was evaluated using simulations, and the obtained results show that mobile devices without positioning capabilities were able to use the model to estimate their position. Moreover, the accuracy of the positioning model has been shown to be suitable for conducting most first response activities.

Year of Publication
2015
Journal
Sensors
Volume
15
Number of Pages
25176–25207
URL
http://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/15/10/25176
DOI
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s151025176
  • DOI
  • Google Scholar
  • BibTeX
  • EndNote X3 XML
  • EndNote 7 XML
  • Endnote tagged
  • Marc
  • RIS

Main navigation

  • Home
  • Announcements
  • Projects
  • Research
  • Publications
  • About DSG
  • Location
  • Software
  • Talks
  • Members
  • Former Members
Powered by Drupal