Survey of Catastrophe & Observation in Urban Territories

Abstract of the project:
The SCOUT project described in this proposal fits in a larger-scale tentative project called AROUND (Autonomous Robots for Observation of Urban Networks after Disasters). This project, which has yet to be formally launched and funded, has a global scope of 5 years, while the present proposal has a duration of 2 years. The ultimate objective of AROUND is the design and implementation of a real-time decision-support system for disaster recovery in urban areas, which relies on the combination of global GISs at different scales and local automated sensing capabilities. It is mainly targeted at large Asian cities in the case of natural disasters.

Being the first phase of AROUND, the SCOUT project focuses on the first steps of this large project: (1) to strengthen the existing consortium and, possibly, establish new linkages and partnerships by organizing a series of events (workshops and meetings) on the subject; (2) to design the first prototypes and the first integration plan of the involved technologies into one global architecture; (3) to stimulate dialogue between NGOs, local policy makers, and researchers in order to precisely target the needs of the different Asian countries involved in the project (Vietnam, China, Cambodia), in cooperation with the specialized French laboratories in related topics.

End-users are already involved in the AROUND project. Strong links are established with political structures for disaster prevention in Vietnam, such as AMCO-M (Surveying and Aero-photomapping Corporation – Vietnamese defense) and the Popular Committee of the city of Hanoi in charge of all plans relevant for disaster prevention and recovery for the city of Hanoi. It is planned in this project to extend the group of end-users to others countries like China and Cambodia, as well as other countries in Asia.

Institutional support:
The SCOUT project is funded by French MAE, CNRS and  INRIA in the framework of the French ICT-ASIA Programme, call 2006
Duration: 2 years
Start of the project: October 2006