An Architecture for Fog Computing Enabled Emergency Response and Disaster Management System (ERDMS)

For the Internet of Things (IoT), the cloud computing plays an important role by offering storage, management, and processing of a large amount of data on the central remote server. Due to the large volume of data, the different operations performed on the data results in the increased response and processing time. This is where Fog Computing comes into play. Fog computing provides services at the edge of the network. It offers many advantages such as low latency, geographical distribution, mobility support, real-time interaction, heterogeneity, interoperability, etc. The purpose of this research is to leverage these advantages to design a low-cost and efficient emergency responder and disaster management system. Response time will be reduced with the help of fog computing by performing computation at the edge device (fog node). Cost of the overall system will be reduced by utilizing the sensors and computing capabilities of Android devices. The aim of this research is to develop an efficient, low-cost emergency response and disaster management system architecture which provides lower latency as compared to the central cloud-based system. The main features of Emergency Response and Disaster Management System (ERDMS) are: identifying an emergency event; broadcasting the event-related information; notifying hospitals, ambulance, and concerned personnel; creating, and executing an action plan.

I. Introduction

Emergencies are unpredictable. Different disasters such as accidents, floods, tsunami, earthquakes, etc. can result in various losses and even causalities [1]. In such situations, in-time decision making is very important [2]. Timely delivery of help is crucial. If a natural disaster was to occur, then any type of delay could be life-threatening. In case of any disaster, especially accidents, it is very important to devise a plan of action. The plan of action includes responders, which can be a person or an ambulance. The objective of an action plan is to reach the emergency site and take the affected person to a safer place as soon as possible. Normally, such decisions are made by humans, which are usually delayed due to conflicts, little information about the concerned responder and little experience of the attendant in handling such situations.