HYBRID RESCUE TEAM LOCALIZATION SYSTEM

Abstract

Localization and tracking support is useful in many contexts and become crucial in emergency response scenarios. Being aware of team location is one of the most important knowledge for incident commander. Team localization and tracking open new prospects to increase safety, efficiency, and also to decrease mission time: localized rescue personnel can be better coordinated, commanded and guided. Moreover a reliable localization system reduces the possibility of disorientation and failure to locate victims, that are contributing factors to rescuer deaths. In this work a technique for first responders localization support in emergency indoor scenarios is presented. The peculiarity of the proposed system relies on the integration between human operators and robots in a hybrid team. The proposed localization technique takes advantage from both passive and active infrastructure composed by nodes that can provide information about their positions and the resources/hazards nearby. The main contribution of the thesis is the development and the testing of a localization system for hybrid rescue teams, able to handle both a priori knowledge, i.e., maps of the environment, with large uncertainties and information updated during rescue tasks.