A Wearable Wireless Sensor Network for Emergency Cases in Buildings Using a Customized Structural Health Monitoring System

The paper presents a novel system based on a wearable WSN and a customized SHM system for managing emergencies in buildings. In this system, the wearable devices are nodes of the WSN, while the customized SHM system collects data from the nodes and sends them to the server. The proposed SHM system is not only a normal SHM system which can be used for structural monitoring applica-tions by measuring vibration, displacement, temperature, and etc., but is also designed to be used as the sink in the wearable wireless sensor network. This SHM system is able to communicate with the nodes using radio frequency which also provides the possibility of indoor localization of the nodes (people) with a reasonable precision. In addition to the different sensors which have been used to measure vital signs (body temperature, heart rate, and etc.), this system is equipped with RF and GSM modules in order to communicate with servers through RF and mobile networks respectively. When the telecommunication infrastructures are damaged due to the disaster, the RF module will be used to send data to the servers through a customized SHM system. This system is useful during an in emer-gency (earthquake, fire, flood, and etc.) in order to define the location and the overall status of the victims (dead/alive and conscious/unconscious) who are trapped inside the damaged buildings. Using the data collected by the system, it is possible to develop maps which include approximate location of people and their status. These data will help emergency teams to improve efficiency and speed of searching and rescuing, and consequently, save more lives and decrease recovery time.