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When a crisis develops, the hardest thing is knowing how to react and what to react to first. A few weeks ago, my grandpa stopped breathing and passed out. Amidst all of us shaking him and freaking out, one man called 911 while the other, who happened to be a doctor, began checking his vitals, heart rate, breathing, etc. and collected information from my grandma on his current medication and condition. When the paramedics walked in a few moments later, he provided them with all the details so that they were able to quickly administer treatment and ensure his health and safety right away. Having someone provide these important details immediately amidst the chaos of our frantic worried family aided the EMTs in providing my grandpa with excellent care quickly and efficiently. This is what the team at Responsphere is looking to provide for responding organizations when a crisis occurs. Timely and effective response to natural or man-made disasters can reduce deaths and injuries, contain or prevent secondary disasters and reduce the resulting economic losses and social disruption. As they state, there is a strong correlation between the quality of the critical decisions first responders make and the accuracy, timeliness and reliability of the situational information and available resources to the decision makers. Responsphere is an IT infrastructure test-bed formed by collaboration between UC Irvine and UC San Diego that incorporates a multi-disciplinary approach to emergency response by drawing from academia, government and private enterprise. The goal of their infrastructure is to facilitate rapid and seamless access to and dissemination of information. The dramatic improvements in the speed and accuracy at which information about the crisis flows through the disaster response networks has the potential to revolutionize crisis response saving human lives and property.
One focus of the Responsphere team was to install multi-function sensor motes throughout the Calit2 Building at UC Irvine. The motes are currently installed on the building's fourth floor and contain temperature, humidity, acoustic and light sensors, accelerometers, magnetometers and an alert system that activates whenever any of the sensors reach a pre-determined level. The data collected by the motes stream in real-time to a ZigBee network. The sensor information is updated approximately every three seconds to a database and is available to anyone with network access. The team used Crossbow's MICAz Mote platform along with the multi-sensor MTS310 board.
The Responsphere team moved forward with this effort as part of their project to improve crisis communication and response. The ability to quickly recognize changes in building conditions could help to indicate emergency situations. Real-time data can quickly indicate potential trouble in the building. Changes in temperature and light sensors could be indications of explosion or fire, etc. Because the sensors are localized, responders would know exactly where to take action. The acoustic sensors measure ambient sound level where a drastic change could signify a problem. The accelerometers measure building sway on the x and y axes to give data on its structural health, while the magnetometers read the magnetic levels in the building. Chris Davison, the technology manager at Responsphere states, "These motes stream real-time sensor data so they can be utilized as a first indication of trouble in the building. The Calit2 building is certainly one of the most intelligent of the smart buildings. Ellis Stanley (City of Los Angeles emergency manager) like to say that we have more instrumentation in our coffee room that (is in) most cities."
This is just a part of the efforts being done at Responsphere. The video below highlights a deployment of a wireless sensor network solution developed and implemented at Responsphere that was used to monitor the annual festivities that occur in the Gaslamp Quarter in downtown San Diego for Mardi Gras. More than two dozen Calit2 researchers deployed a mobile communications and sensor network infrastructure to provide incident management for an event where law enforcement must know what is developing, whether behavioral characteristics are changing and respond appropriately. Responders can not be everywhere at once and the network allowed them to maximize their resources. The reliable and timely data enabled by wireless sensor networks that is provided in crisis situations will continue to help us be more prepared when disaster strikes.
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