Prototype implementation of human management system with BLE beacon devices in natural disasters
Mizuki Murase, Katsuyuki Tanaka, Katsuhiro Naito · 2018
Local governmental units in Japan have stepped up contingency planning after the great East Japan earthquake in 2011. Due to expensive update cost and operation cost of special community wireless systems for disasters, more reasonable disaster support systems are required in many local governmental units. A management of staff during disaster-relief activities is strictly important to quick rescue and recovery. On the contrary, it is typically difficult in practical situations because many staffs should go on patrol to check on damages of a disaster. As a result, local governmental units cannot optimize disaster-relief activities according to the latest situation of staffs. This paper develops a human management system with BLE beacon devices in natural disasters. A location of each staff is very important information to optimize disaster-relief activities. The developed system consists of BLE beacon devices, a special smartphone application, and a management cloud. Each staff can control the operation of their BLE beacon device to protect their privacy by turning off the device. The smartphone application can collect a beacon from BLE beacon devices around the smartphone, and can upload their location information to the management cloud automatically. Emergency Management headquarters can optimize their operations according to the location information on the management cloud.