A multi-user BIM-based indoor navigation and information sharing system for collaborative response to fire emergency

Abstract

Fire is one of the most dangerous incidents that cause casualties and property damage. In 2019, there were 7335 fire incidents in Hong Kong, causing 14 deaths and 295 injuries. To minimize the loss, it is important to improve the collaborative response to fire emergencies among building occupants, facility managers, and firefighters. Hence, sufficient information needs to be supplied and shared with different participants timely to enhance their situational awareness and support their decision-making. However, necessary information, e.g., the route information of the building, the location information of individuals, hazards, and resources, and operating attributes of firefighting equipment and emergency-affected facilities, is required but seldom available in current practice, resulting in inefficient and solitary response activities. To address the existing issues, advanced technologies, such as building information modeling (BIM), indoor positioning techniques, and the multi-user environment, can be leveraged to improve the factors affecting the collaborative response.

This study aims to develop a multi-user BIM-based indoor navigation and information sharing system named CORE system to support on-site participants’ response operations during fire emergencies. The information requirements of different participants are first identified and examined by practitioners to clarify the information items they possess and require for conducting emergency response. Then, four modules are developed to constitute the CORE system. The information provision module offers real-time fire emergency-related information to participants to support their decision-making by enriching BIM models and conducting information exchange. The route planning module provides automatic BIM-based pathfinding calculation to timely support person-to-place evacuation, person-to-person rescue, and person-to-object resource finding. The position tracking module develops a hybrid localization using the particle filter (PF) to integrate the inertial measurement unit (IMU) based dead reckoning and the Wi-Fi-based fingerprinting method to provide robust and accurate positioning applicable to fire emergencies. The information sharing module establishes a multi-user environment to enable participants to update and share information conveniently to facilitate the collaborative response. The feasibility of the CORE system is validated by a case study with a real-world dormitory building. Moreover, performance tests are conducted to examine the functionality of the individual modules, showing the system can provide route planning guidance efficiently and track participants’ location accurately. Last, the usability of the CORE system is evaluated using the agent-based modeling (ABM) and simulation and the virtual reality (VR) based user experiment. The result reveals that the system has positive influences on enhancing on-site participants’ situational awareness, promoting mutual communication, supplying desired information and resources, and improving their collaboration performance.

The significance of this study is that it is the first attempt to investigate, develop, and evaluate a multi-user BIM-based system to assist first responders in collaborative response so as to minimize the loss of victims and vulnerable facilities. In addition, the study will form a scientific basis to develop new mechanisms to assist participants in tackling more complicated fire emergency scenarios and further cast light on the information preparation, system prototyping, evaluation, and adoptions to benefit the emergency, safety, operation, and maintenance fields holistically.