Analysis of employment of a Disaster Relief Damage Assessment System using discrete event simulation

Abstract

This project uses discrete event simulation to model and analyze the process of setting up and employing a damage assessment system for information-gathering after a disaster. The process that is modeled was originally performed as a live simulation in May of 2008. The live simulation experiment was conducted by a research team affiliated with the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS), including the author, and was based on a post-tsunami scenario that combined numerous surveillance and communications technologies. With information obtained from this experiment, a discrete event simulation model was created to accurately represent the live simulation. The model was then enhanced to include realistic variability for all processes. In addition, further enhanced models were created to simulate likely equipment failures and weather delays in order to estimate how long the process would take given these various conditions. The addition of delays to the model resulted in more realistic cycle times giving the project increased validity. The project provides the Disaster Relief/Humanitarian (DR/HA) research community a realistic analysis tool for assessing the process of setting up and employing a damage assessment system following a disaster and the results give an expected completion time and range under the conditions modeled.