Simulating Crisis and Disaster Responses

Peter Förster is an Aerospace Engineer working for DARWIN partner Technical University Braunschweig (TUBS) in the University’s Department of Air Traffic Management. With over six years’ experience working in the aerospace industry, he has particular interest in the topics of flight guidance and optimising air traffic management.Peter Förster is an Aerospace Engineer working for DARWIN partner Technical University Braunschweig (TUBS) in the University’s Department of Air Traffic Management. With over six years’ experience working in the aerospace industry, he has particular interest in the topics of flight guidance and optimising air traffic management.

TUBS has many roles in the DARWIN project. Currently, Peter is researching existing definitions of resilience globally. This information will be used to inform the requirements for the DARWIN guidelines. He is also investigating different simulations which will be used to validate the guidelines in Air Traffic Management (ATM) and Healthcare scenarios. In this task, Peter is collaborating closely with DARWIN’S Serious Gaming Partners.

As the guidelines are being developed, it is important to test whether they are practical and realistic for end-users to apply to a real life crisis or disaster. To validate the guidelines, serious gaming and simulations have a critically important role to play. Researchers will create a disaster in a virtual environment and will use the simulator to try to calculate the effectiveness of different outcomes. The DARWIN guideline concepts will be tested in real-time, which allows researchers to look at the outcomes from different management strategies. It is considered a ‘What if’ analysis in the research world. Graphs may then be created of crisis stakeholder’s work flows during their responses to the virtual scenarios.

There are many steps which DARWIN partners need to take before the virtual tests may be put in place to assess the guidelines. These steps include:

1. Choosing the most appropriate simulator by looking at the properties and characteristics of available simulators
2. Deciding which crisis scenarios will be tested – these will be decided collaboratively among the DARWIN consortium
3. Connecting the virtual environment with the simulator such that the outcomes of the scenarios being tested may then be assessed and analysed

DARWIN’s expert community of crisis and resilience Practitioners (CoCRP), will advise project partners not only on the resilience guidelines which will be tested, but also the virtual scenarios which the guidelines should be tested in.