Every 24 seconds, a fire department in the USA responds to the fire somewhere in the country, while once a minute, a fire occurs in a structure or building. The Federal Emergency Management Agency calculated that in 2019 there were 110 900 fires in nonresidential buildings, that caused 100 deaths, 1125 injuries and $2.8 billion in dollar loss. There’s a 10% increase in fires in nonresidential buildings and a 50% increase in deaths in the last 9 years (2010 – 2019).
According to the statistics, less than half of building occupants feel confident about their building’s evacuation plan. In emergency situations, quick response and evacuation of people can save lives. Despite the fact that in buildings, according to fire safety rules, there are plans for rooms with emergency exits, their study, especially in conditions of panic, takes time, which can be critical in order to leave the building in a timely manner. AR navigation greatly simplifies and speeds up the evacuation process, thereby potentially saving lives.
Smart AR navigation will take people through emergency escape routes fast and accurately. It would be significant for skyscrapers, health centres or large complexes of buildings. Let’s explore the AR navigation use case possibilities and competitive advantages.
Technology explained
Escape exits and following navigation routes can be added along with other meta-content (points of interest, descriptions, navigation routes). In case of emergency, it’s much faster to open the app instead of searching for complex floor plans. The app will show the nearest to person escape routes in the list of points of interest and generates the shortest navigation route to get there.
Please check the demo of fire evacuation using precise localization and AR navigation, powered by Augmented Pixels localization and navigation SDK. The company continues to work on expanding the functionality of the AR navigation system in an emergency situation — when navigation works in complete darkness without cellular communication and the Internet, laying the optimal route for safe evacuation.
Following the AR route speeds up the evacuation process because in panic it’s hard to think clearly (when you need to analyze the plan, define your position on the floor by yourself — especially in an unknown building). When you use our navigation solution all you need to do is follow AR arrows on your way to exit.
Competitive advantages
- Superfast work. Our proprietary technology localizes in a few seconds and defines your position in the building with 2 cm accuracy.
- Precise localization. The most precise on the market localization ensures that you’ll see in the app the nearest (with 2 cm accuracy) escape exits and will be directed there fastly.
- Fast deployment. Our AR navigation solution for emergency use can be easily installed for all tenants of a skyscraper or a certain company that decided to use the solution.