Improving Emergency Management by Modeling Ant Colonies

Abstract

The focus of this thesis is to identify whether emergency management can be modeled after ant colonies, perfectly emergent organizations, in order to better manage an autonomous response. An ant colony uses a dense and resilient communications system that incorporates a positive feedback loop, which allows the organization to be adaptable. Currently, emergency management organizations are experimenting with social media to establish a communications system similar to the positive feedback loop used by ant colonies. This thesis advocates that following a disaster, an emergency management organization gather information from the public through an Internet survey. The survey would be quickly processed and provide critically needed information.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Mar 01, 2015
Accession Number
ADA620660

Entities

People

  • Ryan K. Mcfadden

Organizations

  • Naval Postgraduate School

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Autonomy
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Engineered Resilient Systems
  • Human Systems
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Biological Sciences
  • Communication Systems
  • Data Centers
  • Department Of Homeland Security
  • Disasters
  • Emergencies
  • Emergency Response
  • Internet
  • Mobile Phones
  • Organizational Structure
  • Self Organizing Systems
  • Smartphones
  • Social Media
  • Students
  • Text Messaging
  • United States
  • Warning Systems

Readers

  • Maritime Combat Support and Expeditionary Logistics.
  • Military History of the United States in the 20th Century.
  • Team-Based Human-Centered Cognitive Task Decision Making and Information Performance.