A service oriented cloud-based architecture for mobile geolocated emergency services

Despite the growing development of space-based systems aimed at monitoring and studying
natural hazards, they continue to harm humankind worldwide, causing enormous human and economic
losses. In a view of improving the effectiveness and the timeliness of existing emergency
systems, we propose a service-oriented cloud-based software architecture for mobile sensing
applications. Exploiting existing Global Navigation Satellite Systems and public Cloud Computing
services, we implement a set of mobile geolocated services enabling mobile devices to send
real-time in-field observations. Such observations could be used by authorities and first responders
for both Early Warning and Emergency Response services complementing in real time the
situational assessment provided by existing means, eg, remote sensed information and in-situ
sensors. We propose a Service Oriented Architecture that can be used as a reference for implementing
the back end ofmobile applications requiring to send crowdsourced geolocated reports.
We fully implement a real application, and we evaluate its performances with Microsoft Azure
varying the user load and the main deployment parameters. Our results can be taken as reference
to assess the capability of future applications with similar requirements.