by Phavanhna Douangboupha
The objective of this project is to develop a prototype for an easy to use web-based resource tracking system implemented on a mobile device. It provides real time data to a decision maker so that he/she can effectively and efficiently monitor resources and access the situation accordingly. By the same token, emergency personnel (e.g. a doctor or a police man) has the advantage of system auto login without manual report upon their arrival to an affected location. The system architecture of the web-based resource tracking during a disaster or crisis situation can be seen below in Figure 1.
- System architecture of Web-based resource tracking during a disaster or crisis situation
Figure 1: System Architecture of Web-based resource tracking during a disaster or crisis situation
Resources are, a human resource (e.g. a doctor, a policeman), a moving resource (an ambulance, a police car), and a building resource (e.g. a hospital).
The prototype includes three main applications – position tracking, resource management, and identity manager modules.
The resource management system consists of emergency classification, search, and alert systems. The project aims to design an easy to use user interface for the system so that users and decision makers can get to important information as quickly as possible. One of the solutions to such an objective is to have a classification of emergency combined with a recommendation system. The application utilizes the pre-existing data to recommend resources (what are required resources and their locations) for a certain situation such as flooding. Apart from the recommendation system, the system offers another search option, nearest search option, for users to search for required resources for the crisis that they have to manage.
The identified needed resource shall be alerted by the system. For a moving resource such as a doctor or an ambulance, the system should automatically provide routing or direction information to his/her GPS-enabled device. This functionality links to the position tracking application.
The second application is the position tracking application that consists of real time location update, routing, and the time statistic module. As a doctor responds to the system alert, his/her GPS enabled device will automatically send his current geographic X, Y coordinate location in thee form of an XML file. The XML file also includes the login id which is the unique device id. Before being passed through the network, the XML file is encrypted and only the system can decrypt the information (the identify manager module). As each resource travels toward the site, the decision maker will have a virtual map showing real time information about the resources. In addition, the system shall be able to provide a report on number of resources at each near by location. The routing information and the estimate time statistic prediction on when each resource will reach the site will also be an option on the decision maker’s screen. Using API technology, a virtual map is requested from a map server.
The system will make the use of the REST web-service to bridge the connection between the server and clients. The REST web-service and the WWW solution for the prototype are selected to avoid certain mobile specific standards. REST provides a solution for the mobile device system to interface with the system in manageable lightweight implementation. Since, REST utilizes URI namespace technology, it makes the application scalable and the data can be easily shared with different servers. In addition, REST uses HTTP and XML solutions and hence it is well understood by firewalls and security administrators.
Links to other blogs in this project
- Resource pooling and scheduling systems during a disaster and/or crisis situation using a handheld device and the World
Wide Web (WWW) technologies - Web-based resource tracking system implemented on a mobile device
- Location Tracking Techniques
- Creating REST Web Service
- REST Client simple Implementation and Test
- REST Service Implementation using HTTP – Cross Domain Request
Tags: Add new tag, location tracking, mobile device, web-based resource tracking
@kiwanja I keep meaning to ask you to look at an idea being developed by one of my grad students: http://chw.rit.edu/blog/?p=44
[...] The next blog is going to address how REST will be used in the resource pooling and prediction project using handheld devices. [...]
Hi, just wanna know whether this project is aimed mainly for 3G mobile phones? Will it be possible to implement this project on simple mobile phones such as the first iPhone?
Hope someone can enlighten me on this one. Thanks!
Dear labuperam,
This prototype will be developed using WWW technology. Hence, any mobile phones that can access the internet should work. In fact, iPhone is my selected device for demonstration. iPhone hardware advantages such as the GPS system location identification and the graphic display are believed to be very useful for this prototype.
hope i did answer your question.