Emergency cyber-physical-human systems

Emergency management systems (EMS) are important and complex examples of Cyber-Physical-Human systems that are deployed so as to optimise the outcome of an emergency from a human perspective. They use sensor networks, networked decision nodes and communications with evacuees and first responders to optimise the overall Quality of Service to benefit primarily human beings in terms of survival, health and safety, and the the protection of nature, property and valuable infrastructures. The use of technology for emergency management also has side effects in terms of failures and malicious attacks of the ICT system, so that the outcome will be affected by how well the ICT system operates under stress. Thus this paper surveys research on wireless sensor- assisted EMS, including networking, distributed control, and knowledge discovery. An evaluation of increased effectiveness and liabilities that wireless communications introduce is conducted when adversaries exacerbate the emergency by malicious attacks through the wireless system. © 2012 IEEE.