Mobile cloud computing for indoor emergency response: the IPSOS assistant case study

Mobile Cloud Computing and Internet of Things provide pervasive connected infrastructures that allow people to be continuously connected with other people, services, and objects. However, technologies for multi-paradigm distributed computing are still in their infancy and lack of standardization and experimentation as pervasive well-being technology. In this article, we discuss about the use of mobile cloud computing technologies to devise a new generation of software systems for Indoor Emergency Response with better automation, flexibility, efficiency, and rich user experience. To this end, we present a prototype cloud-enabled mobile app, named IPSOS Assistant, for monitoring people well-being and managing emergencies in indoor environments. Such a prototype application is aimed at increasing the reliability and safety in indoor workplaces to prepare for and manage a variety of emergencies or incidents by giving people assistance (e.g., showing available escape routes in case of fire) and by taking advantage from the social contribution of other people located nearby in the same building. The IPSOS Assistant app has been designed and developed since 2014 as an academic/research pilot project. In this article, we share the design, discuss faced challenges, and report our experiments and lessons that we learned while developing such a kind of application.