{"id":673,"date":"2020-04-25T15:44:32","date_gmt":"2020-04-25T15:44:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/5g-iot.mdx.ac.uk\/?page_id=673"},"modified":"2023-02-10T10:24:47","modified_gmt":"2023-02-10T10:24:47","slug":"results-impacts","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/5g-iot.mdx.ac.uk\/?page_id=673","title":{"rendered":"Results & Impacts"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The project team have done excellent work in developing a D2D based safety system to address the disaster events. Instead of covering every unsafe place with expensive base stations or stationary relays, the team exlpored a cheaper and faster approach by utilizing LTE devices as relays. The developed prototype for safety alerting is impressive and important. I am excited and happy for Ericsson to join and partner the project team in the next phase to develop the system further to tackle the current COVID-19 pandemic and  other disasters. <\/p>\nDr. Mallik Tatipamula<\/strong>, CTO, Ericsson Silicon Valley, USA<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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The fact that your project is able to solve a real-life problem is very valuable for us. Many experts are expecting a large-scale earthquake in the near future, particularly in the Istanbul region, and I think your system provides a valuable contribution to aid recovery from these kinds of disastrous situations. After all, your demonstrations show that the prototype can help in saving human lives. I am also impressed with the state of healthy and fruitful collaboration between the partners, and the project deserves to be considered as a success story.
<\/p>\nMr. Erhan Yavas,<\/strong> Newton-Katip Celebi Fund Programme Coordinator, Turkey
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It was exciting to join the project team to explore great potential of the 5G systems to support planning and recovery in natural and humanitarian disasters. As an industry partner, we were fascinated to see the innovations proposed and created in latest wireless technologies. We were every happy to help the team in converting those innovations into prototype for trials and test. We will support the team to develop and trial the system at large scale.<\/p>\nDr Duc To<\/strong>, Principal Algorithm Engineer, Viavi Solutions Ltd (formerly Cobham Wireless), Stevenage, UK<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Safety services are in high demand worldwide, particularly in the event of disasters (both natural and human ones). Roughly one million people died in disasters between 2004 and 2013 (IFRC). Unfortunately, Turkey is no exception, suffering from various disasters, e.g., earthquakes in 1999 (45000 died), in 2011 (604 died, 2608 injured), and in 2020 (29 died); mining accident in Soma Eynez Mine in 2014 (301 fatalities); and recent avalanche in 2020 (40 died). The COVID19 pandemic is affecting the whole world badly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our Newton funded project targeted those emergency\/safety situations in Turkey and its region, by developing a location-based system that provides safety support to victims (mobile users) and assists emergency\/rescue services, utilising the latest device-to-device (D2D) and relay technologies in 4G\/5G mobile networks. The system is able to provide assistance to reach people in need during\/after a disaster event, and it allows safety alerts to reach users who are in danger of entering unsafe areas. It can support the rescue actions to be quickly deployed to the disaster sites. The system is also useful for other dangers at remote campsites, snowy walking trails and landslides, where conventional communication means of cellular networks may only be partially available. Importantly, it can potentially help with contact tracing and public alerting in the COVID19 pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The results are summarised:\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(1) A novel framework<\/strong>: The project addressed the critical area of public safety and disaster services by developing a novel framework and system architecture of communication using the latest mobile technologies. The framework details were highly recognised by peer reviewers and published in 10 journal (8 in top-tier IEEE journals) and 12 conference papers<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(2) Alerting\/safety service<\/strong>: A suite of a centralised software, an efficient database system for managing location information, and a protocol for message forwarding were built to test the alerting services. This novel method allows a user (often a victim who is out of communication range) to communicate through D2D link with another device acting as a relay to the control centre who analyses critical location data and convert it into safety\/emergency messages; <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(3) A novel hybrid scheme to obtain users\u2019 location data<\/strong>: A proactive approach in which the users\u2019 location is updated prior to any disaster event and a reactive approach where a D2D mode is used right during\/after disasters for location updates are combined to enhance the recovery process, increasing the probability of finding the victims despite the damage of communication links. The scheme demo by METU team in Turkey<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(4) A prototype<\/strong>: The developed prototype is used for demonstration of the overall system and to test the alerting services. D2D technology allows us to exploit the nature proximity of communicating devices, leading to multiple performance benefits, while relaying technology allows the users in potential danger to be reachable by the control centre when safety issues arise. The prototype proved the system offers safety services that operate automatically by ways of monitoring, collecting location information and providing quick safety\/emergency actions; <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(5) An Android app<\/strong>: was designed to help monitor, collect, and dispatch safety information to the users. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prototypes and demos:<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

We have designed the protocols and apps to carry out services for safety warning and alerting:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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  • Overall prototype demo video for the safety and emergency services (carried out by UK team in Hendon, London)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
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