Ultra wideband indoor positioning system in support of emergency evacuation

There has been a research focus recently on developing indoor positioning systems (IPS) that can support tracking and evacuation in case of emergency. Real-time positioning, target tracking and mobile agent communication are important operations in evacuation planning and management in non-open environments such as indoor, urban and underground areas. However, these are challenging tasks since the performance of GPS and other conventional sensing technologies for positioning and target tracking are either limited or even non-existent due to serious effects of radio signal fading and multiple path interference. This paper investigates and proposes an effective methodology using ultra wideband (UWB) technology to develop a robust and self-organized mobile ad hoc sensor network. Such network is able to provide integrated capability of real-time accurate position tracking and voice/data communications in support of emergency rescue operations in critical complex environments. We present a prototype of UWB IPS for real-time positioning, target tracking and communication support. The system design and installation are presented in detail and the performance of the system is evaluated through testbeds based on some scenarios.