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Rensselaer Researchers Unveil Prototype Disaster Management Simulator

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Emergency Mobile Command Center (FEMA)
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Emergency Mobile Command Center (FEMA)
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Engineers and Scientists Collaborate To Develop
Powerful New Decision-Making and Data Visualization
Tools

Engineers and scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
are working to develop powerful new decision-making and data
visualization tools for emergency management. These tools aim
to help law enforcement, health officials, water and electric
utilities, and others to collaboratively and effectively
respond to disasters.

Today, a team of three Rensselaer researchers will
demonstrate a prototype of this new technology for federal,
state, and local officials, including representatives from the
Department of Homeland Security and New York state. The
demonstration will take place in the Curtis R. Priem Experimental
Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC), the capabilities
of which are a key component of the new technology’s data
visualization and advanced interactive graphics.

The research project is a collaboration between
William “Al” Wallace ’61, the Yamada Corporation Professor
at Rensselaer, and a member of the Department of Industrial and
Systems Engineering (ISE); Barbara Cutler,
associate professor in the Department of Computer Science; and
David Mendonça
’01, associate professor in ISE. All three faculty members will
present today.

“Just as disaster response is a collaboration between many
different agencies and decision makers, a project of this scope
and ambition requires the expertise of faculty and students
from different disciplines,” said Wallace, who has a joint
appointment in the Department of Civil and Environmental
Engineering. “We are delighted to share our progress with our
friends and partners at federal, state, and other agencies.
Their feedback, comments, and suggestions are vital to the
progress and success of our research.”

This new technology combines Wallace’s world-leading
expertise in infrastructure systems, Cutler’s research on
augmented reality and data visualization, and Mendonça’s
research on improvisation and decision making in unique
disaster and emergency situations. The prototype features a map
of a disaster area projected onto the movie theater-sized
screen, with overlays detailing the location of hospitals,
power plants, temporary shelters, and many other key landmarks,
infrastructure, and critical data. Due to the complexity and
interconnectedness of these infrastructure systems and data,
responding organizations must collaborate to be effective. The
researchers’ new system enables emergency officials from
different backgrounds and different agencies to interact with
the data collaboratively and at the same time.

The researchers are also developing ways to use this kind of
environment to better study decision making. For a variety of
reasons, it is rare for researchers to have an opportunity to
observe the work of emergency response managers and responding
organizations during an actual disaster. So the new technology
is able to simulate emergency situations using data from past
disasters and other simulations techniques.

Funded by the Department of Homeland Security’s Coastal
Hazards Center of Excellence, as well as a Seed Grant from the
Office of the Vice
President for Research at Rensselaer, this project is
expected to advance basic knowledge of sources of resilience—or
“bounce back”—in infrastructure systems, and to produce tools
and technologies for leveraging these sources.

Wallace will present on his work developing a web-enabled,
open-source decision technology platform named MUNICIPAL, which
is based on emergency response and restoration activities and
data from a New Hanover County, N.C., hurricane situation. This
project looks at different independently managed systems—such
as power, water, communications, transportation, and
hospitals—from a 30,000-foot perspective in order to map out
and better understand the interdependencies among the varied
infrastructure systems.

Wallace’s MUNICIPAL software helps emergency response
officials identify these interdependencies ahead of time, and
plan accordingly. The software also enables officials to input
data about a particular storm or hurricane, in order to
forecast how much damage will be wrought by the extreme
weather.

For more information on the research of Wallace, Cutler, and
Mendonça at Rensselaer, visit:

SOURCE

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