Accession Number:

ADA463649

Title:

Information Fusion for Natural and Man-Made Disasters

Descriptive Note:

Final technical rept. Apr 2001-Oct 2006

Corporate Author:

STATE UNIV OF NEW YORK AT BUFFALO DEPT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING

Personal Author(s):

• Scott, Peter D.

Report Date:

2007-01-31

Pagination or Media Count:

446.0

Abstract:

Prompt effective response to emergencies created by major natural and man-made disasters requires highly coordinated efforts from emergency responders and decision-makers across multiple disciplines, jurisdictions, and hierarchical levels of responsibility and authority. A critical task is creation of coherent, comprehensive and accurate situation assessment which can guide decision-making and resource allocation. The raw materials for this situation assessment are prior domain knowledge, incoming reports from sensors and human observers, a situational assessment logic, and a disciplined data fusion paradigm. To date, data fusion research in this domain has focused on the levels of data fusion below the critical situation assessment level, namely signal and object assessment. This project studies the use of comprehensive data fusion, including situation and impact assessment, in the response to natural and man-made disasters. In particular, the early response phase is emphasized, in which casualty mitigation is the core goal. New methodological approaches and their deployment in an earthquake simulator test bed are the products of this research.

Descriptors:

• *CRISIS MANAGEMENT
• *EMERGENCIES
• *NATURAL DISASTERS
• *DATA FUSION
• SIMULATORS
• OBSERVERS
• METHODOLOGY
• MANMADE
• EARTHQUAKES
• RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
• CASUALTIES
• RESPONSE
• OPTIMIZATION
• TEST BEDS
• DISASTERS

Subject Categories:

• Administration and Management
• Information Science
• Safety Engineering

Distribution Statement:

APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE