Cyber-Physical Systems in Disaster Management: Real-Time Data Collection and Analysis for Improved Response

Disaster management is one of the applications where cyber-physical systems play a significant role by allowing real-time data collection and analysis. Such systems consist of physical, computational and communication elements and enable the automatic exchange of information between machines and humans and decision-making in disaster situations. This technology can change the method of disaster response to a more automated one, and it could reduce the amount of manual data collection and analysis. In disaster management, CPS consists of a set of interconnected devices, including sensors, drones and mobile devices monitoring different factors of the disaster: assessing damage, environmental conditions and survivor whereabouts. This information is sent to a central hub for processing and real-time analysis. This information is then fed into models to assess risk, identify hot spots and guide rescue and relief operations. CPS enables disaster response teams to utilize live data, which means decisions can be made faster and more accurately.