Localization and Positioning Systems for Emergency Responders: A Survey

• Published in: IEEE Communications surveys and tutorials Vol. 19; no. 4; pp. 2836 - 2870
• Main Authors: Gonçalves Ferreira, Andre Filipe, Azevedo Fernandes, Duarte Manuel, Catarino, Andre Paulo, Monteiro, João L.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 01.01.2017
• Subjects: Emergency responders; Emergency services; Fires; Global Positioning System; Indoor environments; indoor localization; indoor positioning systems; IP networks; localization methods; localization techniques; Tutorials; unknown and unstructured environments; Wireless sensor networks
• DOI: 10.1109/COMST.2017.2703620

The availability of a reliable and accurate indoor positioning system (IPS) for emergency responders during on-duty missions is regarded as an essential tool to improve situational awareness of both the emergency responders and the incident commander. This tool would facilitate the mission planning, coordination, and accomplishment, as well as decrease the number of on-duty deaths. Due to the absence of global positioning system signal in indoor environments, many other signals and sensors have been proposed for indoor usage. However, the challenging scenarios faced by emergency responders imply explicit restrictions and requirements on the design of an IPS, making the use of some technologies, techniques, and methods inadequate on these scenarios. This survey identifies the specific requirements of an IPS for emergency responders and provides a tutorial coverage of the localization techniques and methods, highlighting the pros and cons of their use. Then, the existing IPSs specifically developed for emergency scenarios are reviewed and compared with a focus on the design choices, requirements, and additional features. By doing so, an overview of current IPS schemes as well as their performance is given. Finally, we discuss the main issues of the existing IPSs and some future directions.