Organizing Rescue Agents Using Ad-Hoc Networks

Abstract

When a disaster happens, rescue teams are organized. They firstly search for victims in the disaster area, then share information about the found victims among the members, and finally save them. Disasters often make conventional communication networks unusable, and we employ rescue agents using ad-hoc networks, which enable the agents to directly communicate with other agents in a short distance. A team of rescue agents have to deal with a trade-off issue between wide search activities and information sharing activities among the agents. We propose two organizational strategies for rescue agents using ad-hoc networks. In the Rendezvous Point Strategy, the wide search activities have priority over the information sharing activities. On the other hand, in the Serried Ranks Strategy, the information sharing activities have priority over the wide search activities. We evaluate them through agent-based simulations, comparing to a naïve and unorganized strategy named Random Walk Strategy. We confirm that Random Walk Strategy shows a poor performance because information sharing is difficult. We then reveal the two organizational strategies show better performance than Random Walk Strategy. Furthermore, the Rendezvous Point Strategy saves more victims in the early stages, but gradually the Serried Ranks Strategy outperforms it.