Page 411 - Unleashing the potenti al of the Internet of Things

Unleashing the potential of the Internet of Things 4

Appendix II

Use case of SCN for emergency management

(This appendix does not form an integral part of this Recommendation.)

An emergency management system [b-ITU News] uses motes to observe the physical conditions of
a building (temperature, smoke, etc.). At the entrance to the building, a mobile user terminal (e.g.,
phone, PDAs or tablet PC) automatically connects to the SCN infrastructure and obtains data from
the motes.

An emergency management system automatically detects emergency situations. In this case, the
user equipment launches software for guidance in emergency cases. It gives instructions on how to
leave the building in the safest way, for example:
– evacuation plans or maps;
– step-by-step sound commands and visual hints (e.g., interior photos with overlaid arrows
towards the exit);
– videos showing how to use safety equipment.

The content of these instructions depends on various factors, for example:
– state of building detected by motes like accessibility and hazard level of rooms and escape
routes;
– position of the user determined by the nearest network node or using GPS;
– user's state of health determined by e-health equipment.
In addition, special information containing both needs and duties is taken into account by the
system. It may be limitations of motion and senses for disabled people that influence the route
choice. At the same time, special personnel of the building may need specific instructions
concerning their service duties (for example, emergency case specialists at the time of an accident at
a nuclear power plant).

In-building actuators (e.g., door openers, emergency lightning and sprinklers) also get commands
from the system and start working.
The emergency operation centre and/or emergency services also get information about the
emergency including its type and place of origin.
If the motes detect no emergency situations, energy consumption of the system should be
minimized. The system should be optimized for low traffic. Motes and mobile user terminals may
be sleeping most of the time or be used for other applications. However, as an emergency situation
is detected, the system must switch to special mode in order to rescue people as soon as possible
(15 minutes or less), e.g.,:
– all the motes and mobile user terminals should be awakened from sleep;

– traffic not related to rescue should be discarded to provide low latency and high
transmission rate;

– software applications running on mobile user terminals and not required for rescue (e.g.,
games, media players) should be suspended to decrease hardware resources consumption
(CPU, memory, etc.) and switch user's attention entirely to the rescue tasks.

Rec. ITU-T Y.4250/Y.2222 (04/2013) 397