DisastersDisaster zones could soon be salvaged by teams of smart devices – here’s how
We will remember 2017 as an appalling year for natural disasters. It comes months after the UN’s head of disaster planning warned that the world is not adequately preparing for disasters. This, he said, risks “inconceivably bad” consequences as climate change makes disasters more frequent and severe. In such circumstances, modern technologies like smartphones, sensors and drones could help enormously, particularly if we can get them to act like an intelligent network. We recently outlined how these three strands from political theory, social science, and biology could be brought together to develop a new paradigm for complex device networks. We see encouraging signs that such thinking is starting to catch on among researchers. These ideas should enable us to develop new approaches that will underpin and enhance a wide variety of human activities – not least when the next disaster strikes. It might even mitigate the effects of climate change, making us better at foreseeing catastrophes and taking steps to avert them.
We will remember 2017 as an appalling year for natural disasters. The United States has endured its most expensive hurricane season, amounting to over $200 billion (£151 billion) of damage. Mexico City experienced a terrible earthquake that killed over 200 people, while severe tropical storms forced tens of thousands of evacuations in Macau, Hong Kong and Tokyo.
We warned that the world is not adequately preparing for disasters. This, he said, risks “inconceivably bad” consequences as climate change makes disasters more frequent and severe.
In such circumstances, modern technologies like smartphones, sensors and drones could help enormously, particularly if we can get them to act like an intelligent network. But first, we software engineers have to figure out how to make this viable. The good news is there are signs of progress – with a little help from some completely different areas of expertise.
Temporary measures
When an area is hit by a hurricane, earthquake or volcanic eruption, a functioning communications system is vital. Good communications can be the difference between life and death when it comes to coordinating rescue efforts; relaying public information about things like shelters and supplies; and enabling inhabitants to communicate with family and friends.
Disasters go hand in hand with communications outages, of course. The next best thing is ad hoc networks of multiple devices that gather and relay information. This could soon regularly include sensors dropped from planes to sample the environment; swarms of drones looking for victims; and clean-up robots. The potential is for all these to work together, alongside people sending information on smartphones.
And it might go further still: devices still need power, and the main electricity sources are likely to be offline, too. The grid will probably be pulling in temporary power from small devices ranging from small generators to solar panels – all ideally coordinated in real time.