Adaptive Evacuation System with Dynamic Route Classification
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Solution Overview
Problem
During emergencies like fires or earthquakes, occupants and first responders face difficulties in navigating safely through buildings due to uncertainty, smoke, and disorientation, as existing evacuation systems fail to provide accurate and dynamic information on safe egress routes.
Innovation Solution
An adaptive evacuation system that uses hazard detectors and a prediction model to classify and signal safe evacuation routes in real-time, updating route safety assessments as the hazard progresses, aided by directional sounders and visual signaling to guide evacuees.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Device complexity
If occupants make their own assessment of egress routes during emergency, then no additional system complexity is required, but route safety assessment accuracy deteriorates due to stress and uncertainty
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an adaptive evacuation system as an intermediary between the hazard and occupants. This system includes hazard detectors that monitor conditions, a prediction model that forecasts hazard propagation, and a route classification mechanism that communicates safe paths to occupants. The intermediary processes information and removes the burden of safety assessment from stressed occupants, directly resolving the contradiction between system simplicity and assessment accuracy.
Solution Approach 2:
The system continuously monitors hazard conditions through detectors and updates route safety classifications in real-time based on predicted hazard propagation. This feedback loop ensures that route recommendations remain accurate as conditions change, addressing the need for high assessment accuracy without requiring occupants to make complex judgments under stress.
2Ease of operation
If fixed emergency exits are used, then navigation is simplified for occupants, but route safety reliability deteriorates when exits are blocked by fire or collapse
Solution Approach 1:
The patent transforms the static concept of fixed emergency exits into a dynamic route classification system. Routes are not predetermined as safe or unsafe but are continuously evaluated and reclassified based on real-time hazard detection and prediction. This allows the system to maintain navigation simplicity while adapting to changing conditions, ensuring reliability even when original exit paths become blocked.
Solution Approach 2:
The prediction model performs preliminary assessment of hazard propagation to proactively identify which routes will become unsafe before hazards reach them. This allows the system to redirect occupants to alternative safe routes in advance, maintaining both navigation simplicity and egress reliability by preventing occupants from attempting to use routes that will soon be blocked.
3Reliability
If real-time hazard prediction and route updating is implemented, then route safety reliability is improved, but system complexity and computational requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the building into multiple zones with classified route safety levels (e.g., safe, potentially unsafe, unsafe). This segmentation allows the complex prediction and classification task to be distributed across multiple manageable components rather than requiring a single monolithic system, reducing overall complexity while maintaining reliability through localized route assessments.
Data Source
AI summary
An adaptive evacuation system and method for providing a safety route to evacuees. Active smoke and heat detector information can be obtained from a fire panel. Routes and exits in proximity to the active detectors are assumed to be unsafe and closed for use in evacuation. Evacuation planning is accomplished with the remaining “safe” routes. The progression of fire and smoke and the time-dependent degradation of evacuation route safety associated with progression of fire and smoke can be predicted and initial classification and signaling of route safety can be performed. As the fire progresses, the initial time-dependent classifications are updated and initially safe routes are reclassified as unsafe and then evacuation directions are modified.