Performance evaluation of a fog WSN infrastructure for emergency management

Advances in technology and the rise of new computing paradigms, such as Fog computing, may boost the definition of a new generation of advanced support services in critical applications. In this paper we explore the possibilities of a Wireless Sensor Network support (WSN) for a Fog computing system in an emergency management architecture that has been previously presented. Disposable intelligent wireless sensors, capable of processing tasks locally, are deployed and used to support and protect the intervention of a squad of firemen equipped with augmented reality and life monitoring devices to provide an environmental monitoring system and communication infrastructure,in the framework of a next-generation, cloud-supported emergency management system. Simulation is used to explore the design parameter space and dimension the workloads and the extension of the WSN, according to an adaptive behavior of the resulting Fog computing system that varies workloads to save the integrity of the WSN.