A victim and rescuer communication model in collapsed buildings/structures

Abstract

In a disaster hit area, infrastructure networks may be disconnected and main communications between victims and rescuers are not available. An interesting question is that how many people are trapped in a collapsed building and how close they are to a nearby rescuer's position. A smart-phone is widely used today and it normally has a Wi-Fi function to connect to the Internet. The phone can be used for saving victims' lives. In this paper, a communication model is proposed for a victim to communicate with others and also a rescuer to communicate with victims. State diagrams of the victim and rescuer models are proposed along with pseudo codes for the model operation. An example communication scenario is presented to demonstrate how the model works.