Extended reality enhances effective disaster management
First responders to disaster scenes are faced with highly stressful situations, where the decisions and choices they make impact their – and other - lives. “Knowing beforehand the accessibility of roads in a flood can help professionals understand the optimal navigation route to reach a specific location, or evacuate an area,” explains xR4DRAMA project coordinator Stefanos Vrochidis from CERTH-ITI in Greece. “Other key situational awareness elements might include accurately understanding near-future weather conditions.”
Extended reality for situational awareness
The EU-funded xR4DRAMA project sought to enhance such situational awareness – and thus decision-making – through the application of extended reality (XR) technologies. XR is an umbrella term for all immersive technologies, such as augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality. In doing so, the project sought to address a number of key issues. “It can be difficult to simulate a disaster accurately and realistically for training purposes,” says Spyridon Symeonidis, part of the coordination team from CERTH-ITI. “Collecting all relevant information during a disaster can be highly challenging and traditional communication channels can cause delays and sometimes even misunderstandings.” The project team therefore saw an opportunity to use XR technologies to create more realistic training experiences (using for example VR), and to create a better understanding of a given disaster site that can be shared with team members.
Interactive XR platform for disaster events
To do this, the project established an interactive XR platform, enabling team members to communicate and exchange data with each other. For actors in the field, AR and mobile applications were developed to immediately provide them with details about the tasks assigned by the control room. “This platform is supported by a smart vest system, which tracks physiological signals and enables continuous monitoring of the status of professionals wearing it by the entire team,” explains Sotiris Diplaris, another coordination team member from CERTH-ITI. “A back-end system also collects, analyses and organises information coming from a range of sources such as social media, satellites and sensors.” A citizen awareness app was also developed. “Using this app, citizens can, for example, send various types of emergency reports, or receive notifications from first responders regarding how to deal with an incident,” he adds.
Better preparation and management in difficult situations
The resulting XR platform is a tool that can be used for planning and supervising disaster management, and that can also support the media in increasing their situational awareness of a remote or dangerous site. The platform was successfully tested in two use cases, namely flood management in Vicenza, Italy, and documentary planning in Corfu, Greece. A commercialisation plan has since been developed, detailing the steps to be taken to bring xR4DRAMA’s technology to market. “These steps include determining target customers, forming strategic alliances with key industry players and designing a sales strategy,” says Vrochidis. “We have shown in the user cases that the platform leads to a high level of situational awareness and, as a result, better preparation and management of disaster situations.” Vrochidis notes that in the user tests, flood managers and first responders emphasised the sense of immediateness that the platform provides. “There are no tiresome calls and messenger threads,” he remarks. “Just one session on the platform was enough for stakeholders to see what was going on, and to make the right decisions.”
Keywords
xR4DRAMA, disaster, VR, XR, AR, flood, weather, navigation, situational awareness
