AN INTELLIGENT DECISION-SUPPORT SYSTEM TO SUPPORT CRITICAL BUILT FACILITIES EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS AND RESPONSE TO EXTREME EVENTS

CUBER: Overview

Destructive disasters often result in severe damages to buildings, leading to uncertainty about the structural stability of the building and the whereabouts of the occupants being trapped. Such disasters are rare but inevitable typically caused by events such as fires, storms, or explosions, and may lead to deaths. In this type of crisis, the challenge is to assist the search and rescue personnel to prepare and devise a rescue plan to reduce the time required to quickly locate and rescue the surviving victims.

This project seeks to develop a state of the art decision-support system, as a strategic emergency preparedness and response tool. The aim is to provide new tools to expedite urban search and rescue operations for preparedness and response after disasters. This will allow rescuers to obtain more timely and accurate situation awareness, which not only increases the number of successfully rescued persons, but also lower the risk for first responders significantly.

Unlike the existing computational models of evacuation, the proposed Critical Urban Buildings Emergency Response (CUBER) system is better suited for rehearsal, through simulation, of emergency preparedness and response. This will ensure enhanced strategic preparedness and response. It also facilitates scenario planning for a faster and more appropriate responses to the unexpected on complex building, especially high-rise buildings. CUBER is aimed for first responders to drastically shorten the time until potential survivors are found.

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