Emergency support system with directional extensions

This paper proposes an emergency support system (ESS) with two novel algorithms, a path finding algorithm to guide evacuees during an emergency, and a communication protocol to make the opportunistic communications (oppcoms) more effective (when observing the unnecessarily sent messages). The oppcoms uses low-cost wearable mobile nodes (i.e. smart phones) that can exchange packets at close range without help of an infrastructure. Both algorithms are based on the same idea: always to maintain the direction from hazardous areas to fire exits. The main goal of the ESS is to guide evacuees in a built environment such as in a shopping centre where fire is spreading. Our support system is evaluated with the DBES (Distributed Building Evacuation Simulator) and multiple simulations have been performed with this tool using different parameters. The results show that the enhanced emergency evacuation system can offer significant improvements for the evacuees and can achieve better results when the number of duplications is taken into account.