Using Ambient Intelligence to Control Aggression in Crowds

During events that involve large crowds (e.g., demonstrations or sports events), large-scale aggressive outbursts are not uncommon. Since these outbursts are usually triggered by relatively small stimuli, and the amount of people involved may grow very quickly, their emergence is often highly unpredictable and difficult to control. The number of different factors that play a role in the development of crowds is large, which makes it difficult to gain a concrete insight in how the collective aggressive behaviour of a given crowd (with known parameters) will develop. This paper is a position paper and is to be considered as a first step in the development of an ambient system to analyse and control the emergence of aggressive behaviour in crowds under different circumstances. The main purpose is to use the system to provide support for police officers and (formal) guardians in both detecting, decreasing and avoiding (the number of) riots.