The use of RFID tags to support the post-disaster recovery of utility infrastructure
Pages 333 - 345
Abstract
The smart, IT-enabled infrastructure requires utilities to geospatially map their facilities and be able to locate them quickly after they get buried or broken during disasters. In this paper, we describe a collaboration between a university research centre, a manufacturer, a utility, and a city who worked together to map facilities near beaches along the US Gulf Coast. The team tested three technologies, GPS, RFID, and magnetic locators, both individually and in combination, and discovered that using all three together gave the best results. The new device and system developed as a result of this study has the potential to become an important element in disaster preparedness. Given that there are millions of kilometres of infrastructure networks around the world, a new industry needs to develop that digitises utilities' facilities, stores this information, locates the facilities quickly after a disaster, and uses cloud-computing to hasten the recovery process.
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Inderscience Publishers
Geneva 15, Switzerland
Publication History
Published: 01 January 2016
Author Tags
- GPS
- Gulf Coast
- IT-enabled infrastructure
- RFID tags
- USA
- United States
- cloud computing
- collaboration
- critical infrstructures
- digital information
- disaster management
- disaster preparedness
- emergency management
- emergency preparedness
- emergency recovery
- emergency response
- experiential learning
- facilities
- global positioning systems
- information technology
- magnetic locators
- mission-critical data
- partnership
- post-disaster recovery
- radio-frequency identification
- second responders
- university research
- utilities
- utility infrastructure
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