Advanced methods of cell phone localization for crisis and emergency management applications

Abstract

Real-time people localization cannot be achieved through statistical methods during crisis/emergency management events. An International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) catcher was proposed as a nontraditional method for cell phone-based people localization. We verified the idea of using a cell phone as a sensor and tested the possibility of transmitting cell phone data through the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Sensor Web Enablement. Four large field tests were performed and are described in detail. The main conclusions for IMSI catcher deployment were search within a limited radius from its placement and the number of localized people was not a limiting aspect; although the technology for advanced cell phone-based localization is available for crisis/emergency management applications, we do not yet have sufficient ability to handle this technology.