An Integrated Perspective towards the Combination of Sensors and Warning Systems: Examples of Underpass Flood

摘要

With rapid Internet technologies advances in recent years, a new paradigm that can effectively connect and control devices via innovated Internet technology, well known as the Internet of Things (IoT), has successfully facilitated a variety of smart applications. One of the important IoT applications of the smart city is disaster management. Whenever a place is under hazard threat, such as flood, warnings must be issued to the general public to avoid or reduce unnecessary damages. From an IoT viewpoint, the integration of sensors and warning systems can provide a new way for monitoring real world changes and sending real-time warnings to anyone who is within or close to the disaster area. The sensors must be able to continuously detect the changing status and automatically issue warning whenever necessary. The delivery of warning messages can be implemented as push-based and location-aware services, so that citizens can quickly evacuate from their houses or change drive plans upon receiving warnings. A system prototype for underpass flood warning is developed to automatically issue warning to drivers to prevent them from entering dangerous underpass. We tested two ways of message transmission, one via Zigbee and another via the internet. The Zigbee approach establishes direct communications between sensors and clients via wireless connection, while the internet approach broadcasts the message via web-based platform. The use of the IoT technology for hazard warning is not restricted to the case discussed in this paper. As sensors become cheaper and easier to deploy, the future system have the advantages of cost effective, mobility and wide coverage when compared to the current systems.