User Equipment Localization and Victim Estimation with Next-Generation PSC in Emergency Response

Due to the advancement of mobile broadband communications, traditional public safety communications (PSC) network is no longer efficient in emergency response. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has initiated a research program for the next generation PSC. In this paper, we propose to locate and narrow search areas as well as victim estimation using wireless ad-hoc communication based schemes to accelerate the rescuing process in emergency responses. In the proposed approach, an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) based scheme is developed to narrow the search area. Moreover, we propose a distributed scheme using device-to-device communication to estimate the number of victims within a given search area. With the information provided by our proposed schemes, rescuers will have a better estimate of search areas and number of victims in emergence response scenarios. The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed schemes are efficient and effective in the two targeted purposes. Our work will contribute significantly to the next generation PSC.