Augmenting rescuer safety using wireless sensor networks

Localization and tracking are fundamental features in emergency response operations, where the mission leader needs to be aware of the team location. This paper addresses the localization for rescuers by exploiting wireless sensor networks embedded in the environment. Specifically, a pre-deployed network is considered and a localization algorithm is designed to find the location of the node and to track the rescuers cooperatively. Nodes estimate their own positions, while rescuers improve and augment their location awareness during mission by navigating across via points suggested by the network, thus improving the overall localizability. Experimental results show the effectiveness of the approach.