Technological Feasibility of a Smartphone-Based System to Integrate Volunteers into Professional Rescue Processes

We evaluate the technological feasibility of a system that allows to contact a mobile device over the internet and to determine its position. We apply this system to a scenario where voluntary human resources are semi-automatically integrated into professional rescue processes. The latency of two different location APIs on the Android OS when using different localization technologies (GPS, WiFi, and mobile network) are examined. We also describe an architecture that allows for contacting mobile devices, receive their positions and evaluate the round-trip time of this approach. We describe the influences and consequences for our scenario. Results from this work can be used for other collaboration approaches based on mobile services.