Dynamic Multi-Objective Evacuation Path Planning in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

We propose an approach to compute navigation instructions on mobile devices carried by people during a building evacuation in order to guide them to safe areas or exits. The mobile devices form an ad hoc network via local communication links and use this network to collect information about the current evacuation situation. This information is used for path planning in order to optimize escape routes with respect to multiple objectives, such as congestion avoidance and risk minimization. Due to delays and link breakages in the network communication, the prediction of emerging congestions becomes a major challenge. We propose two congestion indicators which are based on uncertain knowledge gained from local communication between the mobile devices. It is shown that dynamic multi-objective evacuation path planning reduces congestions and accelerates the evacuation process compared to a state-of-the-art evacuation planning approach for mobile devices.