Portable Sensor Housings for Dynamic Building Map Generation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Emergency responders, such as firefighters, often arrive at scenes without accurate and up-to-date knowledge of building interiors due to outdated blueprints and potential hazards like blocked corridors, making it challenging to navigate safely.
Innovation Solution
A system that dynamically generates a building map by combining static data, real-time sensor data, and user inputs from sensors emitting and receiving pulses to create a semantic building information model, allowing for accurate and current mapping of interior features.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If static blueprints are used for building mapping, then the mapping system is simple and easy to obtain, but the accuracy and up-to-date information are insufficient
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines multiple data sources including static blueprints, real-time sensor data from portable housings, and dynamic inputs from emergency workers to create a comprehensive building information model. This merging of diverse data sources resolves the contradiction by achieving high accuracy through multi-source integration while managing complexity through systematic data fusion processes.
Solution Approach 2:
The system transitions from static blueprint-based mapping to a dynamic real-time mapping system that continuously updates the building information model as emergency workers move through the structure. Sensors on portable housings capture changing conditions and update the model dynamically, ensuring accuracy reflects current building states rather than historical data.
2Loss of information
If real-time sensor data collection is implemented, then up-to-date building information is obtained, but the device complexity and data processing requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The portable housing units are designed as multi-functional devices that integrate multiple sensor types (acoustic, electromagnetic, inertial, optical) into a single platform. This universality allows comprehensive building condition monitoring while managing complexity through integrated design, where one device performs multiple measurement functions rather than requiring separate specialized equipment for each sensor type.
Solution Approach 2:
The building information model serves as an intermediary data structure that organizes and integrates information from multiple diverse sensor sources. This intermediary model simplifies the complexity of handling raw sensor data by providing a standardized framework for storing, processing, and utilizing information from acoustic sensors, electromagnetic sensors, inertial sensors, and optical sensors in a unified manner.
3Adaptability or versatility
If multiple data sources are integrated into a single model, then comprehensive building information is achieved, but the data integration complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements feedback mechanisms where the building information model continuously receives updated data from portable housings and emergency workers, and this feedback loop allows the model to adapt and refine its representation of the building. The feedback process manages integration complexity by using established protocols for data ingestion, validation, and model updating, transforming a potentially chaotic multi-source integration into a systematic iterative refinement process.
4Reliability
If dynamic map generation is performed in real-time, then current building conditions are reflected, but the processing time and computational resources increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by pre-processing and organizing data as it is collected from sensors, and by establishing the building information model structure in advance based on available static blueprints. This preliminary organization of data and model framework reduces the computational burden during real-time updates, allowing the system to maintain high reliability through continuous updating without excessive processing delays when dynamic changes occur.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
Provides firefighters with a real-time, accurate, and comprehensive map of the building's interior, enhancing safety by integrating multiple data sources into a single model that can be displayed on headsets or vehicle-based units, overcoming the limitations of outdated blueprints and hazardous conditions.
Implementation Method 1
data provided by persons on the scene, and real-time sensor data using sensors specifically designed to provide physical topographical data about the environment in which they are located
Data Source
AI summary
A system and method are presented for producing a model of the interior of a building. The model is capable of receiving and dynamically incorporating input from various sources including, for example, existing static map data, data such as annotations and updates provided by persons on the scene but outside the building, and real-time data from sensors located on mobile persons or assets that are dynamically moving inside the building. In some cases, the moving persons or assets inside the building may carry a unit that emits sound or electromagnetic pulses, which reflect off the immediate surroundings in a particular room or portion of the building, and sense the reflected pulses. The reflections from relatively close features may arrive at the sensor more quickly than those from relatively distant features, so that temporal analysis of the reflected pulse may provide information about features in the building as a function of their distance away from the unit. Pulses may be emitted and received at multiple locations in a room or portion of the building. The reflected pulses may be analyzed, using specific time shifts that correspond to round-trip travel times in particular directions, so that the actual locations of features may be identified. By walking from room-to-room throughout the interior of a building and performing such analysis, much or all of the interior of a building may be mapped.