Journal of the Korean Society of Surveying, Geodesy, Photogrammetry and Cartography (한국측량학회지)

Korean Society of Surveying, Geodesy, Photogrammetry and Cartography (한국측량학회)
권호 표지
DOI QR코드

DOI QR Code

Analysis of suitable evacuation routes through multi-agent system simulation within buildings

  • Received : 2021.09.08
  • Accepted : 2021.10.25
  • Published : 2021.10.31
Download PDF
⟨ Previous Next ⟩

Abstract

When a dangerous event arises for people inside a building and an immediate evacuation is required, it is important that suitable routes have been previously defined. These situations can happen especially when buildings are crowded, making the occupants have a very high vulnerability and can be trapped if they do not evacuate quickly and safely. However, in most cases, routes are considered based just on their proximity or short distance to the exit areas, and evacuation simulations that include more variables are not performed. This work aims to propose a methodology for building's indoor evacuation activities under the premise of processing simulation scenarios in multi-agent environments. In the methodology, importance indexes of simplified and validated geometry data from a BIM (Building Information Modeling) are considered as heuristic input data in a proposed algorithm. The algorithm is based on AP-Theta* pathfinding and collision avoidance machine learning techniques. It also includes conditioning variables such as the number of people, speed of movement as well as reaction ability of the agents that influence the evacuation times. Moreover, collision avoidance is applied between people or with objects along the route. The simulations using the proposed algorithm are tested in NetLogo for diverse scenarios, showing feasible evacuation routes and calculating evacuation times in a multi-agent environment. The experimental results are obtained by applying the method in a study case and demonstrate the level of effectiveness of the algorithm, and the influence of the conditioning variables analyzed together when performing safe evacuation routes.

Keywords

Acknowledgement

This research was supported by the Research Fund for Fundamental Research (2021R1F1A106422811), of the Basic Research Project for Science and Engineering, Ministry of Science and ICT.

References

  1. Bandini, S., Crociani, L. and Vizzari, G. (2014), Modeling heterogeneous speed profiles in discrete models for pedestrian simulation, International Conference on Autonomous agents and multi-agent systems, 5-9 May, Paris, France, pp. 1541-1542.
  2. Bo, Y., Yong-gang, W. and Cheng, W., (2010), A GIS-based simulation for occupant evacuation in an amusement building, 2010 2nd International Asia Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics (CAR 2010), pp. 274-277.
  3. Castillo, E. and Yoo, H., (2019), Simulation of evacuation route scenarios through multicriteria analysis for rescue activities, Journal of the Korean Society of Surveying, Geodesy, Photogrammetry and Cartography, Vol. 37, pp. 303-313. https://doi.org/10.7848/ksgpc.2019.37.5.303
  4. Castillo, E., Seo, M, and Yoo, H., (2020), Consistency of criteria in building interiors through the analytic hierarchy process for simulation of feasible evacuation routes, Sensors and Materials, Vol. 32, No. 11, pp 3835-3851. https://doi.org/10.18494/SAM.2020.2908
  5. Chennoufi, M., Bendella, F. and Bouzid, M., (2019), Multi-agent simulation collision avoidance of complex system, International Journal of Ambient Computing and Intelligence, IGI Pub, Vol. 9, pp.43-59. https://doi.org/10.4018/IJACI.2018010103
  6. Fachri. M., Juniastuti, S., Nugroho, S.M.S. and Hariadi, H., (2017), Crowd evacuation using multi-agent system with leader-following behavior, 2017 4th International Conference on New Media Studies (CONMEDIA), pp. 92-97.
  7. Federal Emergency Management Agency (2003), FEMA 426 Manual to Mitigate Potential Terrorist Attacks Against Buildings, Building Vulnerability Assessment Checklist, https://www.fema.gov/sites/default/files/2020-08/ fema426_0.pdf (last date accessed: 20 July 2021).
  8. Freud, S., (1921), Group psychology and the analysis of the ego, International Psychoanalytic Publishing House, Vienna, P. 140.
  9. Hart, P., Nilsson, N. and Raphael, B. (1968), A formal basis for the heuristic determination of minimum cost paths, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Science, and Cybernetics, pp. 100-107.
  10. Helbing, D., Farkas, I. and Vicsek, T., (2000), Simulating dynamical features of escape panic, Letters of Nature, Vol. 407, pp 487-490. https://doi.org/10.1038/35035023
  11. Huang, Q., Ma, H. and Zhang, H,. (2003), Collision-avoidance mechanism of multi-agent system, Proc of the 2003 IEEE International Conference on Robotics, Intelligent Systems and Signal Processing, Changsha, China, pp. 1036-1040.
  12. Kontou, P., Georgoudas, I.G., Triunfio, G.A. and Sirakoulis, G.C., (2018), Cellular automata modelling of the movement of people with disabilities during building evacuation, 2018 26th Euromicro International Conference on Parallel, Distributed and Network-based Processing (PDP), pp. 550-557.
  13. Lee, J.K. and Park, J.W., (2013), A study on the calculation of pedestrian's conflict index using multi-agent based model (Multi-ABM) - focused on the Netlogo simulation model, Journal of Transport Research, Vol. 20, pp. 105-116. (in Korean with English abstract) https://doi.org/10.34143/JTR.2013.20.4.105
  14. Moussaid, M., Helbing, D. and Theraulaz, G., (2011), How simple rules determine pedestrian behavior and crowd disasters, Proc of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 17, pp. 6884-6888.
  15. Naderpour, A. (2018), From A to B: An Algorithmic Approach to Circulation Inside Buildings, Master's thesis, University of Washington, Washington, USA, 92p.
  16. Nash, A., Daniel, K., Koenig, S. and Felner, A., (2010), Theta*: Any-angle path planning on grids, Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Vol. 39, pp. 533-579. https://doi.org/10.1613/jair.2994
  17. Saaty, T.L. (1990), How to make a decision: The analytic hierarchy process, European Journal of Operational Research, Vol. 48, Issue 1, pp. 9-26. https://doi.org/10.1016/0377-2217(90)90057-I
  18. Stollard P. and Johnston, L., (1994), Design against fire: An introduction to fire safety engineering design, Spons Architecture Price Book; 1st edition, London, England, 172p.
  19. Weerasekara, N., (2015), Modeling and Simulation of the Evacuation Plan for Hancock Stadium, Master's thesis, Illinois State University, USA, 67p.
  20. Weidmann, U. (1993), Transporttechnik der Fussganger - Transporttechnische Eigenschaftendes Fussgangerverkehrs (Literaturstudie), Literature Research 90, Institut fuer Verkehrsplanung, Transporttechnik, Strassen - und Eisenbahnbau IVT an der ETH Zurich.
  21. Yoo, S.H., Kim, M.K., Bae, J.S., and Sohn, H.G. (2018), Selection of appropriate location for civil defense shelters using genetic algorithm and network analysis, Journal of the Korean Society of Surveying, Geodesy, Photogrammetry and Cartography, Vol. 36, No. 6, pp. 573-580. (in Korean with English abstract) https://doi.org/10.7848/KSGPC.2018.36.6.573